Robi files for IPO finally
Robi yesterday handed in its application to the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission for the operator's listing on the country's twin bourses, as the long-awaited debut of the second largest cellular phone operator is finally taking shape.
The operator plans to improve Tk 387.74 crore for network expansion in anticipation of revenue-generating opportunities in the regions of Internet-of-Things, home and enterprise.
This would be the second report on a mobile carrier after Grameenphone, which made its debut on the stock market in 2009.
A high executive of Robi, which is the country's second major mobile carrier with 4.93 crore active subscribers, acknowledged the development but declined to elaborate further.
But in a press conference at their office two weeks ago, Robi's top brass said 10 %, or around 52.38 crore, shares will be offloaded.
The facial skin value of the shares will be Tk 10 and you will have no premium.
Of the shares, 38.78 crore will be offered to the general public retail and institutional investors in Bangladesh, while the remaining 13.61 crore will be for employees and directors of Robi beneath the employee share purchase plan.
Altogether, Tk 523.79 crore would be raised.
Axiata has given Robi two conditions for proceeding with the IPO, according to senior executives of the operator versed in the board room discussions.
Robi's decision to get listed was made public on February 21, when its parent company Axiata, which holds 68.69 percent stakes of the operator, gave it the go-ahead to go for IPO through the fixed price method, according to a posting on Bursa Malaysia.
The operator's preparations though started out before that. It has recently got the approval of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
Indian Bharti Airtel holds 25 % stakes after it sold off its Bangladesh subsidiary to Robi and Japanese NTT Docomo the rest of the 6.31 %.
All three parties' holdings will be diluted in line with the current ratio after the initial public offering, which is managed by IDLC Investments.
The first condition is thatRobi's corporate tax should be brought down by at least ten percentage points. The operator pays 45 percent corporate tax at the moment.
At the press conference two weeks ago, Robi's senior executives said they will seek to bring down the organization tax rate to 30 to 35 %; or else there will never be any benefit for the listed company.
Grameenphone got the organization tax benefit when it got listed. But the government withdrew the power a few years ago.
The next condition is withdrawal of the two 2 percent minimum income tax on overall income that the federal government has imposed out of this fiscal year, Alam said.
"Robi's listing can help Bangladesh's twin bourses to become stronger -- this is a gift idea for the country's stock market investors," Mahtab Uddin Ahmed, chief executive officer and managing director of Robi, said at the press conference.
Talks of Robi's listing have already been going on since 2013. The federal government has requested the operator on several occasions to make its debut on the stock market.
But Robi wait on grounds of not logging in profits consistently.
It logged in profits Tk 240.23 crore in 2015 after 2 yrs of losses. The operator next saw profits in 2018, after two years straight years of losses.
In 2019, Robi logged in profits of Tk 16.91 crore, down 92.12 per cent from the previous year.
Its earning per share was Tk 0.46 in 2018 and it came right down to Tk 0.04 at end of 2019.
The carrier started its journey in 1997 beneath the brand of Aktel, after being incorporated under the Bangladesh Companies Act, 1994 as a public company tied to shares on October 12, 1995 beneath the name of Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh).
ON, MAY 28, 2009, the name of the business was changed to Axiata (Bangladesh) and subsequently on 19 August 2010, the business assumed its present name, Robi Axiata.
At the moment, Robi's authorised share capital is Tk 6,000 crore and its own paid-up capital is Tk 4,714 crore.
And its net asset value per share was Tk 12.64 in 2019, down from Tk 12.85 a year earlier.
