Apollo owner holds roadshow for investors today

STS Holdings, which owns Apollo Hospitals Dhaka, will hold a roadshow for institutional investors today, as the hospital plans to go public, using the book building method.

If Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission approves the initial public offering, it will be the second listed hospital after Samorita Hospital, which entered the stockmarket in 1997.

The roadshow will be held at Radisson Blu Water Garden Hotel at 7pm. Merchant banks, asset management companies, stock dealers, banks, other financial institutions, insurance companies and alternative investment fund managers will participate in the event. A roadshow is a requirement under the book building regulations before price discovery.

Book building is a process through which an issuer attempts to determine the price to offer for its security based on demand from institutional investors.

The price of an IPO share is determined through automated bidding joined by financial institutions. The shares are then opened for the IPO participants at the bidding cut-off price. The method was suspended and then revised by the regulator following the 2011 market crash.

ICB Capital Management and AFC Capital are the issue managers of the IPO of STS Holdings. The issue managers will display the company's fundamentals to the eligible institutional investors during the roadshow.

STS Holdings, which has paid-up capital of Tk 150.94 crore, will raise the fund through IPO to invest in its fully owned subsidiary company, STS Hospitals Chittagong, to set up its second hospital complex in the port city.

The cost of the project has been estimated at Tk 490 crore. The IPO proceeds of about Tk 75 crore will be used as equity contribution to the Chittagong Hospital project. Of the rest, Tk 278 crore will be arranged from IFC and DEG in the form of long-term debt and the rest Tk 137 crore from internal sources.