Quickmart PLC began trading on the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) today, opening at Sh10 per share under the ticker symbol QMRT.
The retailer’s shares gained as much as 33 percent in early trade on Thursday after the listing. That is consistent with the Sh10 opening, since the offer price was set earlier at Sh7.50 per share.
The retailer announced its plans on September 23. The offer involved the sale of 2 billion existing shares by Sokoni Retail Kenya Limited, the company that owns all of Quickmart’s shares. Quickmart receives no money from the listing. The selling shareholder gets the proceeds and pays the expenses, and the company said this was not a fundraising for new stores. The Capital Markets Authority approved the Sh15 billion offer, and the NSE approved admission of the company’s entire issued share capital of 4 billion ordinary shares on the Main Investment Market Segment. On those figures, Sh10 per share would value the company at about Sh40 billion, a simple calculation not drawn from any published valuation.
Institutional investors took part in the offer. The UK government subscribed to roughly Sh1.94 billion in shares. Not every analyst saw the offer price as a bargain, however. Sterling Capital estimated Quickmart’s fair value at Sh6.96 per share, below the Sh7.50 offer price.
