PSX to be listed as company on PSX

Will be listed on Thursday, opening price to be Rs28

KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) would itself be listed on Thursday, after it sold 20% stake to high net-worth individual, institutional and retail investors at Rs28 per share.

“The PSX management takes great pleasure in announcing that the process of offer for sale of PSX shares and its self-listing has been completed successfully and PSX will be listed with effect from the 29th day of June 2017 [Thursday],” PSX General Manager Sani-e-Mehmood Khan said in a notification on Saturday.

The opening price of the shares will be Rs28 as determined through book building (Dutch bidding) process. The market lot of PSX will be 500 shares.

Earlier, the capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Chairman (SECP) approved the application for formal listing and quotation of shares of PSX pursuant to Stock Exchanges (Corporatisation, Demutualisation and Integration) Act, 2012 and the Stock Exchanges (Corporatisation, Demutualisation and Integration) Regulations, 2012.

SECP Chairman Zafar Hijazi would be at the PSX to acknowledge the listing at a get together to be held the next day - Friday.

The PSX has sold 160.29 million shares (20% of the total issued share capital) to the investors at Rs28 per share, earning Rs4.48 billion (or $42.7 million) for 200 primary brokers of the market.

Out of the 160.29 million shares, high net-worth individual and institutional investors were sold 159.15 million shares, while retail investors bought only 1.14 million shares.

The PSX’s benchmark KSE-100 Index has been under pressure in recent weeks, but managed to gain 3.2% in the last two sessions to close at 46,332.31 points on Thursday. However, it is far off from the intra-day high of over 53,000 it touched in May ahead of the budget announcement.

Analysts remain sceptical PSX will sustain its upward trend. While upcoming events suggest a return of bearish sentiment, experts said it was difficult to anticipate the bottom level of the benchmark index.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2017.

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