NAIROBI June 16 – Housing Finance on Sunday announced a one week extension for Shareholders and investors, who have taken up rights of the premier property financier, to make payments for new shares.
The extension was earlier granted by the industry regulator Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to allow trading of rights at the bourse up to Friday last week. According to the new time table, the last day of payments has been extended from June 20 to June 27.
New investors keen to take a stake in the mortgage firm have so far snapped over 24 million rights renounced by shareholders at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE).
This means that the 8,422,850 shares allocated to the Government may have been bought by investors on the floor of the bourse during the trading of rights that ended last Friday.
The Government had indicated that it would not participate in the rights issue as part of its divestiture program. The move allowed shareholders to apply for more shares. In addition investors keen on participating in the Issue were able to purchase the rights from the stock exchange.
The Mortgage lender recently received authorization from CMA to extend the period for trading of renounceable shares brought to the bourse by existing shareholders who were unable to fully or partially take up their allocation of rights.
Housing Finance Managing Director Frank Ireri said the extension of the payment period would allow shareholders who had participated in the Safaricom Initial Public Offer (IPO) to make decision-based refunds which investors have already started receiving.
“Shareholders and investors are keen to snap up rights of the country’s most established property financier in the wake of the continued economic upturn, the expected growth and resource allocation to the property sector,” said Ireri.
During the trading of rights major shareholders indicated they would take up their full allocations. British American Investments Company indicated in a press statement that they would take their full rights allocation of 5,635,000 shares.
According to the rights issue’s joint lead transaction advisors Standard Investment Bank and CFC Financial services, most of the applications received from individual shareholders showed they were taking up all allotted shares and apply for more rights.
“Due to the ongoing countrywide collection of documents from shareholders, the firm’s registrar will require more time to collate a total figure of all rights taken up,” said Job Kihumba of Standard Investment Bank. “It is prudent for our shareholders to ensure that they take up all their rights or offload partly or fully before the end of the trading period this Friday.”
Housing finance is seeking Sh2.3 billion from its shareholders, aimed at enhancing the lending and deposits capability up to four times its current capacity.
