Jamaica’s NCB Financial Group (NCBFG) on Friday announced the launch of its long-awaited additional public offering (APO) of new ordinary shares, but the shares will not be marketed in T&T and will only be available to investors who have investment accounts in Jamaican stock brokers.
In a release to the Jamaica Stock Exchange, NCBFG said it was inviting offers for subscriptions of up to a total of 78,500,000 new ordinary shares, with the ability to upsize to a maximum of 117,750,000 shares.
The APO of shares in NCBFG is being offered at the price of J$65 (US$0.415) per share. Up to 785,000 new ordinary shares are initially reserved for priority application by the reserved share applicants falling within the employee reserve pool at the price of J$58.50 per share.
On Friday, NCBFG closed at J$61.84 on the JSE and TT$3 a share on the TTSE. NCBFG is listed on both the Jamaica Stock Exchange and the T&T Stock Exchange
In September last year, NCBFG said it was planning to offer 300 million new shares in the APO.
The offer will open on May 6, 2024 with the proposed closing date of May 27, 2024.
The prospectus states that the total amount to be raised if the APO is successful is J$5.097 billion (US$32.5 million).
Asked on Friday if the NCBFG APO of shares would be available to the company’s shareholders in T&T, the financial institution’s chairman, Michael Lee-Chin said, “The APO is not being marketed in Trinidad & Tobago. We don’t have the prospectus registered there. Persons in T&T wishing to participate would go through NCBCM or another Jamaican broker.”
It was pointed out to Lee-Chin that the company’s shareholders gave it the greenlight to proceed with the APO on October 31, 2023, which meant that NCBFG had at least five months to register the prospectus in T&T.
Lee-Chin was asked whether the Jamaican brokers would be able to market the offering to Trinidadian investors, if the APO prospectus is not registered in T&T.
The NCBFG chairman responded: “The prospectus was not proposed to be registered in T&T. Registering in two jurisdictions has significant timing implications for the updating of the information and the reviews and approvals that are required before publication.
“It would therefore need to be supported by a market read indicating a high degree of interest across jurisdictions. We are aware that there is some interest in T&T, but not sufficient to warrant registering there. “Jamaican brokers can facilitate participation by investors from T&T, or anywhere else, but won’t be soliciting participation from non-clients in T&T - that is the implication of the offering only being registered here.
“The main point is if you have someone in T&T who is interested and has reached out, he/she can be referred to NCB Capital Markets (a T&T subsidiary of NCBFG).
“It is not being marketed in T&T but Trinbagonians are welcome to participate (and, of course, any shares acquired can be traded in either jurisdiction).”
In the prospectus, Lee-Chin explained what NCBFG plans to do with the proceeds of the APO: “We intend to use the net proceeds from this Invitation to support a part of our deliberate capital recalibration with a focus on deleveraging and bolstering capital bases.
“This APO is one of multiple capital recalibration strategies that the NCB Financial Group is pursuing. One of the specific purposes for which the proceeds will be used as a part of our capital recalibration strategy is deleveraging.”