The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor THE $10 million Arawak Port Development Company (APD) initial public offering (IPO) should be listed on the Bahamas International Securities Exchange (BISX) by some point in March, the latter's chief executive saying that once all relevant information was submitted a listing could be approved within five working days. Keith Davies, in a recent interview with Tribune Business, confirmed: "They've [APD] made contact with us, and we're working with them. That's just an ongoing process until they finish. It's at the communication stage. "Once a company engages us formally, we work with them to move them as swiftly through the process as possible, because we don't want any delays in terms of information flow. We are going to move them swiftly through the process, and are looking forward to getting everything finalised." With the IPO now over, Mr Davies said everything rested in APD's hands to provide him with all the information required by BISX to formally list the company on its main tier. "This process can be very short if they have everything," he told Tribune Business. "That's in the company's hands. Once a complete application is in the exchange's hands, we can make a determination for listing within five working days. "The company must do its leg work and provide the information. Once that happens, we take control, can process it accordingly and confirm a listing." Mr Davies said that if APD's listing was not confirmed by end-February, it would take place at some point in March 2012. With some 12,000 subscriptions, the $10 million APD IPO was billed as setting a Bahamian record by becoming the most widely subscribed offering in the history of the Bahamian capital markets. Some $45 million was raised, meaning around $35 million has to be returned to Bahamian retail and institutional investors. Government employees accounted for $6.5 million worth of share subscriptions, with institutional investors taking up $12.5 million and the rest being bought by other Bahamian retail investors. Kenwood Kerr, chief executive of Providence Advisors, one of the IPO's placement agents, told Tribune Business at the time: "We know for certain this is the most subscribed for, the most widely subscribed for IPO in the history of the capital markets in the country/ "And, at the end of the day, we'll have the largest shareholder base from a retail and institutional perspective. There'll be none larger or with more shareholders. "We're well over three times' subscribed. Our expectations were high for the issue, based on its evaluation metrics, business model and management, but our expectations in terms of demand were exceeded. We always anticipated that it could be oversubscribed, but to the degree we're seeing we're pleasantly surprised." Jamaal Stubbs, senior research analyst at CFAL, said Family Island investors accounted for a significant number of subscriptions. "Family Islands made up quite a bit. We got a significant batch particularly from Abaco, Eleuthera, Long Island," he said. "A significant number of people went for the minimum $500 subscription. The majority of the orders were under $2,000 worth of shares. Everyone is guaranteed the first 50 shares or $500 worth, and once we apply that across all orders, we then apply 25 shares across all orders and we keep on applying that across all orders until all the shares are allocated."