IPO lottery takes place on digital platform

An issuer company has to hold an initial public offering (IPO) lottery through licensed digital platforms with manual systems supervised by the Central Depository Bangladesh Limited.

Besides, every issuer company will have to use the platform created by three organisations – the Bureau of Research, Testing and Consultation of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology; Computer Science Department of Dhaka University, and the Bangladesh Computer Council.

Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) source said it had permitted Express Insurance Ltd to hold the virtual lottery because the commission wants to bring everything under the digital platform and online systems. However, a company has the freedom to choose both digital and manual platforms for the lottery.

Earlier, the company had applied to the commission for holding IPO lottery by the virtual systems.

The company completed its subscription within June 14 to July 2.

For the Covid-19 outbreak, the company could not complete its subscription on time. Thereby, the subscription was extended with the securities regulator's approval.

The company's IPO subscription date was set on April 13, but it could not receive applications on that day due to the general holidays.

Express Insurance secured approval from the BSEC to go public with a condition to invest at least 20 percent of its IPO fund in the capital market. It will deposit 74 percent of the fund in banks.

As per the approval, the insurer will raise a capital of Tk26 crore through offloading 2.6 crore ordinary shares at an offer price of Tk10 each under the fixed price method.

A market lot consists of 500 shares and an investor needs Tk5,000 to apply for each lot of IPO shares of a company.

AAA Finance and Investment, IIDFC Capital, and BLI Capital are working as issue managers of Express Insurance.