By Alexander Krassimirov
July 11 – CSKA Sofia is to have a second attempt at launching on the Bulgarian stock exchange. The club has said that a second public offering of shares is being prepared and that more details will be made available at a general meeting of the board later this month.
Earlier this year the club tried to launch on the exchanged the exchange, but the initial offering of shares failed due to poor take up by individual investors.
CSKA intend to offer far fewer shares than the first time – looking at a placing of between 800,000 and 1 million shares. In the initial offering price per share was BGN 3 (€1,5) but it is now it is expected to be no more than BGN 1 (€ 0,5).
The first public share offer attracted only 5720 shareholders. The low level has been attributed to the difficulty in actually being able to transact to buy shares, rather than a perceived lack of interest. The club owners are negotiating with several banks to try and make this easier second time round.
Much of the task is perceived to be the education of bank employees in branches across the country. This would open the number of possible shareholders significantly, and presumably similarly increasing the number of investors taking up the offer CSKA.
Brokers at Bulgarian Stock Exchange believe that one other factor in the failure of the first IPO was the high price of the shares. Experts believe that the price of BGN 3 (€1,5) for the first offering was not in line with the state in which the club is located and that similarly discouraged large-scale investors.
The new price per share is a third less and is expected to redress this issue.
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