Ibnsina Pharma receives LE 22.5B in initial offerings

CAIRO- 5 December 2017: Egypt's second largest distributor of pharmaceuticals, Ibnsina Pharma, has seen its private offering 17 times oversubscribed, Mostafa Abdel Aziz, CEO of Beltone Securities Brokerage, said Tuesday.

The volume of orders amounted to LE 22.5 billion ($1.3 billion), with 500 orders coming from local companies, in addition to investors from the U.S., Europe, the United Kingdom and Gulf countries, Abdel Aziz said in a press conference.

"The most important thing in private and initial public offering (IPO) is not just the volume of subscriptions, but also the quality," Abdel Aziz added.

Listing the sources of orders, Abdel Aziz said that 60 percent of the orders came from foreign investors, as 23 percent were from Gulf institutions, 6 percent from Gulf family offices, 13 percent from South African institutions, 7 percent from European institutions and 6 percent from American institutions.

Ibnsina set the share price at LE 5.8 due to heavy demand for both the private offering and the IPO.

"Receiving subscriptions will close Thursday, so that the first trading day will be December 12," Abdel Aziz noted.

Expecting to have a market capitalization of LE 3.9 billion at the start of trading, the company will offer 269,381,625 ordinary shares, splitting over 85 percent to institutional investors and 15 percent to retail investors.

Ibnsina has a 19-percent market share in the pharmaceutical industry since it started operations in 2000, Mohamed Abdel Gawwad, co-CEO of the company, said in the conference.

"We are currently contracting with 325 suppliers having over 9,500 types of medicine," Abdel Gawwad said.

Ibnsina has generated LE 9.6 billion in sales in 2017, representing 31 percent in annual growth, he added.

The company obtained an export license in October, targeting LE 700 million in investment in new branches.