CinemaONE Gemstone 4DX CEO and director Ingrid Jahra is pleased the company has raised nearly half of some $30.8 million it is seeking from its first initial public offering (IPO).
The company, the first to be listed on the Small and Medium Enterprise Market on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, offered an initial 3,088,373 shares but sold 1,444,168 at $10 per share.
CinemaONE’s IPO has therefore raised over $14 million but was undersubscribed by just over 50 per cent.
The IPO is now closed after it was extended for an additional week.
Listing and trading of the company’s shares are expected to begin on November 14, under the symbol ‘CINE 1.’ CinemaONE will also emerge as the first entertainment stock on the TTSE.
The Offer For Sale of 3,088,373 shares of no par value at $10 per share was successful in raising in excess of the minimum required net proceeds of the Offer For Sale, as outlined in the approved prospectus.
All successful applicants will thus receive their full allotment, which is 100 per cent of their application, Jahra confirmed.
“We are quite happy. It does allow us to continue with those plans we had proposed and that’s also part of what we’re doing now, which is accelerating all those activities,” Jahra said.
The newest CinemaOne in the works will be in Gulf City, La Romaine, with an estimated opening date at the end of the second quarter of 2019, in time for the summer blockbuster movie season.
Jahra said the company has already begun exploring ways to source the remaining funds, which may include loans from commercial banks and venture capital.
“We will go ahead with the plans. It just means we would not be able to use all the equity on all the expansion but on some parts of it. IPO is one way of raising capital, so you use the other channels. You raise some here which is great but you still continue to go to the debt market and find the funds there as well,” Jahra said.
She explained that the IPO also allows for a “bigger base to start with” as the company’s worth has increased.
“And then you have those funds which you can now leverage to go forward with to raise, so that’s how we would proceed,” Jahra added.
At the same time, she said the company’s responsibility was now increased given its recent addition of shareholders.
“We intend to make good, to make all best efforts. Our south location is already underway. You can drive past the car park and see the shell, it’s almost completed,” Jahra said.
Asked whether there might have been a better response if the IPO was put out before Government’s National Investment Fund (NIF) was issued, she said one might never know.
“We were ready but our lead broker had to deal with what they had to deal with before them, which was NIF. You could look at it now and maybe say we should have waited, but the timing of everything is always very difficult to forecast so we really don’t know,” Jahra said.
“What would be interesting is now that there’s been a NIF bond and now there’s the first SME listed, I know that they have forecast to have a housing bond. Let’s see what that will be the uptake because now there’s quite a lot of activity in the market.”
First Citizens Brokerage Advisory Services was the lead broker for CinemaONE Ltd’s inaugural SME IPO.
CinemaONE Ltd is an entertainment company that offers differentiated and innovative digital cinema entertainment in multiple, premium movie formats, including the Digicel IMAX Theatre, Gemstone VIP Cinemas and the 4DX Theatre.