Daily Times

A Gong ceremony was held on Monday at Pakistan Stock Exchange to mark the listing of another company, Citi Pharma Limited, which was listed on PSX on July 9,2021.

Initial Public Offering (IPO) of CPL results in the first listing on PSX for the current fiscal year, says PSX release.

The book building phase of the IPO was a tremendous success with the strike price being discovered at Rs 32 per share whereas the floor price was Rs 28 per share. A large number of institutional and individual investors totaling 516 investors took part in the book building of which 340 investors became successful participants. The issue was oversubscribed with total participation of Rs 4.087 billion being received against an issue size of Rs 2.035 billion at the floor price.

The general public portion of the issue was oversubscribed by 1.6 times showing tremendous interest by the public. Applications for a total of 28,751,041 ordinary shares against the issue size of 18,173,000 ordinary shares were received. Significant number of investors also showed interest in investing in the Issue through the EIPO system of Pakistan Stock Exchange. A total of 232 applications for 416,000 shares were filed through the EIPO system.

The Issue of CPL consisted of 72,692,000 ordinary shares or 35% of the total post-IPO paid-up capital. The entire issue was offered through book building methods at the floor price of PKR 28/- per share with a maximum price band of up to 40%. Initially, 75% of the issue size i.e. 54,519,000 ordinary shares were allotted to successful bidders and 25% of the issue size i.e. 18,173,000 ordinary shares were offered to the retail investors at the strike price. The book building dates of the Issue were 15th to 16th June, 2021, whereas the public subscription dates for the retail portion of the Issue were 23 and 24 June 2021.

The principal purpose of the IPO was to raise capital for :

1) Expansion in API (Active Pharmaceuticals Ingredient) segment. CPL intends to expand their existing capacity of 3,600 tons per annum of Paracetamol to 6,000 tons per annum and to add new APIs to its existing product line, i.e. (i) Ascorbic Acid, (ii) Chloroquine Phosphate, and (iii) Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate.

2) Expansion in the formulation segment. CPL intends to build three manufacturing facilities having a total capacity of 200,000 vials per day, dry powder/suspension 60,000 bottles per day, capsules 4,200,000 per day, and tablets 4,500,000 per day. These include dedicated lines for penicillin, cephalosporin ,and psychotropic and narcotic drugs.

3) Healthcare: CPL intends to build a 50-bed health care facility in Lahore having Out Patient Department , General Operations and Diagnostic Services.

Speaking of the successful subscription of the issue of CPL, PSX’s Chief Operating Officer Nadir Rahman said PSX was very proud of the fact that the first company of the current fiscal year had already been listed, in the 1st half of July 2021. As a prominent API manufacturer in Pakistan, CPL having a net turnover of Rs 3.5 billion in FY20, was one of the important players in the pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan.

CPL’s Chief Executive Officer, Rizwan Ahmad Sheikh expressed delight at the listing of his company on PSX.

Mohammed Sohail, CEO of Topline Securities Limited, who were the Consultants and Book Runners to the issue said Citi Pharma was a unique company and caters to the growing API needs of entire Pakistan – along with its other products. The listing would help the company sponsors realize their expansion plans and also give investors a new flavor of local entrepreneurial skills and expertise, which Citi sponsors possess.