The initial public offering (IPO) lottery draw of Robi Axiata, the largest ever IPO in Bangladesh's capital market history, will be held tomorrow (Thursday).
The lottery draw will begin at 10:30am through a digital platform, the company said in a statement.
The investors are eagerly waiting for the lottery draw as every three-IPO applications has a chance of winning one lot of Robi shares, at least five times easier than as usual subscription, market operators said.
A market lot is 500 shares.
Around 1.28 million general investors applied for Robi's IPO shares out of total 2.4 million BO accounts, according to brokerage house and Central Depository Bangladesh sources.
IPO subscription of Robi, the country's second largest mobile phone operator, began on 17 November and concluded on 23 November.
Robi invites all the esteemed investors to log in to robilottery.com to watch the live lottery programme and to participate in the seed collection for conducting the lottery as well.
The company offered roughly 523 million shares with par value Tk 10 each and raised a fund worth more than Tk 5.23 billion from a wide range of investors including its own employees under the fixed-price method.
Of the total fund, Tk 1.36 billion collected from its own employees under the employee share purchase plan (ESPP) and nearly Tk 3.88 billion through initial public offerings.
According to the company's statement, applications for Robi's IPO shares have been oversubscribed by 5.74 times against the public offering of nearly Tk 3.88 billion.
The IPO proceeds will be used to expand the company's network in anticipation of revenue-generating opportunities in the areas such as Internet-of-Things.
"We are very encouraged to see the tremendous response from the local investors about our IPO process," said Shahed Alam, chief corporate and regulatory officer of Robi Axiata Ltd.
He said they are immensely proud to be coming to the stock markets with the largest-ever stock listing which paves the way for the people of the country to become shareholders of the company.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) approved the IPO plan of the country's second-largest operator on September 23.
IDLC Investments is the issue manager of the Robi.
In the first nine months of 2020, Robi's revenue grew by about 1.0 per cent year-on-year to Tk 56.44 billion. Profits rose 1.9 per cent to Tk 1.16 billion, according to the company's financial report.
Robi has a subscriber base of 51 million, which is 30 per cent of the total market. Of them, 34.7 million use internet.
Robi was the first operator to roll out 3.5G services in Bangladesh. It introduced 4.5G services across all 64 districts in 2018.
Its paid-up capital was Tk 47.14 billion and turnover Tk 74.81 billion in 2019, according to the draft prospectus.
The mobile phone operator started its journey in 1997 under the brand name of Aktel. It then changed its name to Axiata (Bangladesh) in 2009 and took the present name Robi Axiata in 2010.
Axiata holds a 68.69 per cent stake in the company and Delhi-based Bharti Airtel owns the remaining 31.31 per cent.
