“We are excited to see this company, which was grown by Batswana, now offer more value to Batswana through shareholding,” said the Minister of Transport and Communications Tshenolo Mabeo in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana.
According to the BTCL, this is Botswana’s biggest IPO to date. The BTCL privatization project comes off the back of almost a decade of efforts. With shares reserved for citizens, this IPO is a first of its kind on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE).
Forty-four percent of BTCL’s total equity of 1.5 billion shares will be offered to Botswana citizens through BSE at a price of 1 pula (about 0.095 U.S. dollars) per share. The Botswana government will retain 51 percent and 5 percent will be allocated to BTCL’s citizen employees, read the prospectus.
The shares will be offered from January 11 to March 4.
BTCL is one of the leading telecommunications service providers in Botswana. Initially scheduled for 2011, the IPO launch has been delayed for several times. Enditem
Source: Xinhua
