KARACHI: Pakistan will hold an initial public offering of up to 20 per cent of shares in regional power firm Kot Addu Power Co (KAPCO) next month at a price of Rs30 per share, the Privatisation Commission (PC) said on Monday.
The government will offer 88.025 million shares, or 10 per cent of the total, with a green shoe option of another 10 per cent, in lots of 500 from Feb 7, the Commission said in a statement.
It plans to raise as much as Rs5.28 billion ($88.8 million) from the sale. The IPO has been delayed twice. It was initially planned for October, then pushed back to the end of December.
Britain’s International Power Plc manages Kot Addu and holds a 36 per cent stake in the firm, which runs a 1,600-megawatt gas and oil fired power plant in Kot Addu, a town near the central city of Multan. The rest of the shares are held by the government. KAPCO was partially privatised in 1996 when the government transferred management control to International Power along with 26 per cent of the shares. It later sold another 10 per cent to the British power firm.
Last year, small investors gave an overwhelming response to the IPOs of two major state-run firms – PPL and OGDC. Both issues were heavily oversubscribed, encouraging the government to offload shares in other state companies. The government will also hold bidding for up to 73 pc shares in KESC on Feb 4.
