Barita stock climbs on $10.8b APO raise
Published:Wednesday | September 29, 2021 | 2:46 AM
The stock price of listed brokerage firm Barita Investments Limited climbed to $102.70 on Tuesday, following Monday’s announcement of the allotment of shares in its most recent additional public offer, APO, which raised $10.78 billion in new permanent capital for the company.
It is the first time the company’s stock has traded above the $100 mark, sending Barita’s market value to $111.5 billion. The stock appreciated 4.7 per cent this week to Tuesday and 25.4 per cent year-to-date.
The APO, which opened on September 6, closed on September 20, and was oversubscribed, Barita said. The company exercised the option to partially upsize the offer to from the original 125 million shares to just over 134,78 million shares. The upsize maximum was set at 187.5 million shares.
All sharers reserved for key investor groups, including the company’s majority owners Cornerstone Financial Holdings Limited, other existing shareholders and Barita clients, were also fully taken up.
Funds raised from the APO will be used, the company said, to expand its investment portfolio, which includes taking equity stakes in private companies, providing private credit and taking positions in infrastructure and alternative investments. Some of the money is also expected to go towards financing the business’ local and regional expansion, and further expanding its investment banking underwriting capacity.
“This capital raise will allow us to seek new investments for the benefit of the entire country and the Caribbean region. With a larger capital base, we have been further strengthened to take on development projects and fuel growth for all our investors and stakeholders,” Barita said on Tuesday.
The is second APO by Barita in recent times. In the third quarter of last year Barita had tapped the equities market for $13.5 billion, following a rights issue in the latter part of 2019 and another in the early part of 2019, both of which raised $9.3 billion.