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Titas Gas blots on pre-IPO

The company draws in five times more than offered

Sarwar A Chowdhury
On completion of sales after its debut on the country's prime bourse before Eid, Titas Gas drew in close toTk 1,000 crore, almost five times greater than the price it offered.
The state-run gas transmission and distribution company received Tk 975 crore by offloading 2.14 crore shares worth Tk 100 each.
Titas Gas sold each share at Tk 455 on an average, according to statistics from Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB), the company's selling agent.
The market’s overwhelming response to the offload of shares by Titas Gas will encourage other government entities to debut in the stock market, analysts said.
Direct listing is an option for profitable companies that do not prefer the existing IPO (initial public offering) method. Under this system, entrepreneurs or owners
get the best value for their shares, as prospective investors that are directly in the secondary market determine the price of a security.
The government should also offload greater portions of its stake in the already listed companies, they said.
The government can use the stock market as a source of financing and the market is ready to reward heavyweight companies, Salahuddin Ahmed Khan, former chief executive officer of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE), said.
“The government received a good response by offloading 20 percent stake of Titas Gas. If the government offloads another 29 percent in the market, it can gather a hefty sum, which can be invested to develop the energy sector," said Khan, who now teaches finance at Dhaka University.
However, Titas Gas took around a prolonged 14 months to offload its planned 20 percent or 2.14 crore
shares, he said. “The company might have received an even better value if the sale was completed earlier, when the price was high," he said.
Titas Gas made its trading debut on the stock exchanges on July 2 last year.
Opposing DSE's recent proposal to bar private companies from using the direct listing method to offload shares, Khan said it will have a negative impact.
In addition to government owned entities, private sector companies should also be encouraged to list under direct listing rules, he said.
“Instead of discouraging them, the rules should be amended so that no one can make unusual business by abusing the rules," he suggested.
Titas, which distributes gas in Dhaka and the greater Mymensing region, was the fifth state-run company that is listed on the stock exchanges under direct listing rules. sarwar@thedailystar.net