The initial public offering (IPO) lottery draw of Robi will take place today at the capital’s Lakeshore Hotel at 10.30 am.
The IPO subscription of Robi, the country's second-largest mobile phone operator, began on 17 November and concluded on 23 November.
There is tremendous excitement in the bourse for the country’s second-largest mobile operator Robi’s IPO, which is set to eclipse its competitor Grameenphone’s Tk 486.1 crore listing in 2009.
Robi will offload 52.4 crore shares, which is about 10 per cent of its stakes, for Tk 10 each under the fixed price method to raise Tk 523.8 crore from the market.
The operator has already allocated 13.6 crore shares to its employees and collected Tk 136.10 crore.
Since the stock market regulator gave the nod to the listing, which will be the biggest yet in the bourse’s history, on September 23, about 1.20 lakh beneficiary owner’s (BO) accounts, which is a must to buy shares, were opened, according to data from the Central Depository Bangladesh Ltd (CDBL).
In the preceding two months, about 63,560 BO accounts were opened.
Market operators said the spike in BO accounts is to snap up Robi shares.
Robi Axiata is a joint venture between Axiata Group Berhad of Malaysia and Bharti Airtel of India. Axiata holds 68.7 per cent controlling stake in the entity, and Bharti holds the remaining 31.3 per cent share in the company.
The company commenced operations in 1997 as Telekom Malaysia International (Bangladesh) with the brand name ‘Aktel’. In 2010, it was rebranded as ‘Robi’ with the company changing its name to Robi Axiata.