APO to open next month; priced at $80

Investment and brokerage house, Barita Investments has outlined details of its upcoming additional public offer (APO), which will be priced at $80. The company will be offering 125 million ordinary shares with an option to upsize the amount issued by 62.5 million shares to raise $15 billion in additional capital to be deployed in its investment pipeline. 

In an advisory posted on the website of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) yesterday, Barita said the new ordinary shares will be reserved for the benefit of certain specified investors in amounts determined at the discretion of the company.

The APO should open on September 3, 2021 or such other date as determined by the group chief executive officer (CEO) and is to close on September 21. The original notice to the JSE on August 5 stipulated the APO would be for up to 160 million units that could be upsized by 80 million shares. Since the first notice, the stock price moved up from the low $83.90 to $92.77, with the proposed price of $80 being a discount of nearly 14 per cent. The Board of Directors of Barita on August 23, 2021, passed two resolutions making way for the APO to be effected.

Barita reported profit after tax for the June quarter of $1.6 billion, up a strong 62 per cent from $990 million reported in 2020 June quarter. The investment company and brokerage house ended the quarter with earnings per share of $1.48 versus $1.21 in 2020. Earnings for the nine months ended June 30, 2021 at $3.38 per share from after tax profit of $3.67 billion, up 82 per cent from $2 billion in 2020.