SLG book-building begins

KARACHI: Secure Logistics Group Ltd (SLG) on Tuesday announced that its initial public offering (IPO) book-building phase is scheduled for March 27 and 28, targeting high net worth individuals and institutional investors to subscribe to the entire issue size of 50 million shares.

The book building will start at the floor price of Rs12 per share. Based on the interest from investors during the book-building process, the strike price can rise by 40 percent to up to Rs16.80 a share, thus potentially helping the company to raise Rs840 million.

After the book-building process, successful bidders will be provisionally allotted 75 percent of the issue size (50 million shares). The remaining 25 percent of shares will then be offered to retail investors at the strike price. SLG aims to raise a minimum of Rs600 million by offering an 18 percent stake in the company to institutional and general investors.

SLG has also already secured pre-IPO equity of Rs585 million from existing strategic investors like Saudi Bugshan Group (a large Saudi conglomerate) and Karandaaz Pakistan.

The primary purpose of the equity capital raising is to “deleverage the balance sheet in an unprecedented high-interest rate environment, enhance the company’s technology infrastructure base to complete the ongoing Tech-Pivot, and initiate expansion into the regional markets.”

The company has a solid track record of capital market transactions to boost business growth. It successfully closed a Rs600 million convertible Term Finance Issue in 1Q CY19 and raised another Rs1.2 billion through an equity issue to Saudi Bugshan Group and Karandaaz Pakistan in 1Q CY20.