Electricite du Laos debut as first IPO on Lao Stock Exchange

Electricite du Laos debut as first IPO on Lao Stock Exchange

William D. Greenlee, Jr, country managing director and legal adviser of DFDL Mekong, a legal and tax advisor firm, based in Vientiane, said he was so bullish on Electricite du Laos (EDL), scheduled to debut as the first Initial Public Offer or IPO in the history of Laos, on the Lao Stock Exchange (LSX), which has yet to commence trading, that he would plonk some of his money on this equity counter.

During an exclusive interview with the KPL News reporter, the journalist asked him how much money he would invest and he said that even his loving wife did not have the faintest idea.

This state monopoly, a supplier of electricity in Laos, he said, had good assets and also equities in power agreements in future hydro generating plants in the country.

The other IPO, to be listed after EDL, would be BCEL (Banque Pour le Commerce Exterieur Lao), a state-run bank. He added little was known about this bank except that it had good assets. Touching on the LSX, he said it was officially opened on 10 October this year or 10-10-10, a most auspicious day and would commence in January 2011. As some Laotians were addicted to lady luck, this could get them to open their wallets to place their bets on the counters of this stock exchange.

He also said that LSX, a state owned facility, had computerised hardware and software that were already functional and were all set to carry out any buy-sell orders from equity traders.

Therefore it could be said that a bet on EDL or BCEL or both, proxies to the Lao economy, one of the fastest growing in the world, backed by a vast and untapped mineral resource and so the prices of these two counters were likely to zig-zag to reach unimaginable heights.

KPL Lao News Agency