Kelly Group, South Ocean to List on JSE

South African investors look forward to two major new listings on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in coming months.

The Kelly Group, South Africa’s leading provider of temporary staffing and business process outsourcing, plans to debut on the JSE in April. The company has benefited from South Africa’s strong economic growth along with increasing global demand for outsourcing services.

In recent years, Kelly’s been growing revenue at a 20% clip. Operating income was up 67.5% during the most recent fiscal year. No word yet on how large a chunk of the company will be offered to the public.

Next, the South Ocean Electric Wire Company will begin a private placement of 45-49% of its share capital by the end of this month. The $100 million firm benefits from South Africa’s infrastructure boom. Its revenue tripled in the most recent fiscal year.

Upon conclusion of the listing, the company’s CEO will retain 23% of the shares, while the Taiwanese Hong-Tai Electric Industrial Company will hold 22%.

Thanks to Sean's Investment Review for the heads up on both of these new listings.

www.investinginafrica.net

IPO Watch: Stanbic Uganda Share Allocation

It’s official. The Stanbic Uganda IPO resulted in a 200% oversubscription. Investors applied for more than $118 million worth of shares, but only $39 million was on offer.

So it appears that there will be many disappointed punters. But by and large they won’t be Ugandan. All but 36 of the 15,488 individual Ugandan share applicants will receive all the shares that they applied for. Their stakes were capped at roughly $80,000.

Foreign investors, on the other hand, will have their IPO stakes capped at 109,500 shares. This equates to $4,255 or Ksh307,850. The 21,000 foreign applicants were allocated 48% of the total shares offered.

It could have been much worse for non-Ugandans. A $4,000 stake is actually heftier than I’d expected. Still, there will be some $60 million worth of foreign currency that will be looking for a new home.

Refunds will begin to be sent out on January 19. Stanbic Uganda shares will begin trading on the Uganda Securities Exchange on January 25, 2006.

www.investinginafrica.net