Johannesburg - Bidvest Namibia (BidNam) made its debut on the Namibian Stock Exchange (NSX) on Monday. After Anglo American, the company has the biggest market capitalisation on the NSX.
BidNam, which holds the West African assets of JSE-listed industrial heavyweight Bidvest, released 32.4% of its shares into the market in an attempt to boost Namibian involvement in its operations and beef up its empowerment credentials.
Bidvest has reduced its BidNam shareholding from 89% to 52%.
"Our commitment to Namibia is as strong as ever. However, we are reducing our equity stake to allow for increased local participation in the ownership structure," said Bidvest CEO Brian Joffe earlier in October.
BidNam's public offer of 50.7 million ordinary shares opened at the start of October. The offer was oversubscribed - applications for 54.8 million shares were received.
The stock began trade at N$7.20 per share (R7.20/share) on Monday morning.
Emile van Zyl, head of research at Simonis Storm Securities in Windhoek, said the company has already attracted a lot of interest from market participants.
"This is one of the better quality companies on the NSX," said Van Zyl.
BidNam comprises two divisions:Bidvest Fisheries and Bidvest Commercial.
Bidcom houses a freight management business, Rent-A-Car Namibia, Rennies Travel (Namibia) and various other travel-related services. The division also encompasses Bidvest's various food and industrial services in the area.
Bidfish focuses heavily on fishing and distributing mackerel in West Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.
"This is the only exposure that the Bidvest group has to fishing," said Van Zyl. He added that the group might push the division to expand into a wider range of products, as well as create vertical linkages such as fish canning.
BidNam has raised N$313.6m (R313.6m) from the listing, which has been earmarked for acquisitions and investment.
"If you look at the balance sheet pre-listing, you will see that Bidvest Namibia has also been sitting on a lot of cash," said Van Zyl.
"They have said they want to spend N$400m in the Namibian economy but may struggle to do that," he said. "Opportunities for investment in Namibia are limited, which makes me think they will focus on fishing."
The NSX has 30 listed companies and a combined market capitalisation of N$985m.
The NSX was launched in 1992 and initially housed only one listing - Nictus, which was also listed in Johannesburg.
- Fin24.com