Business leaders eye PTL IPO shares
Business leaders eye PTL IPO shares
Large numbers of local and foreign businesspeople in the provinces of Luang Prabang, Savannakhet and Champassak have shown interest in buying shares in Petroleum Trading Lao Public Company (PTL).
Businesses made their interest clear after press conferences to announce the Initial Public Offering (IPO) were held in on November 17, 18 and 20 in Savannakhet, Champassak and Luang Prabang provinces respectively and in Vientiane last Saturday.
Some 150 business operators attended the press conference in each province, with 75 to 80 percent of them considering buying shares, according to a PTL report yesterday.
Shares in PTL, under their IPO of 60 million shares, are expected to go on offer for 2,000 kip each, to raise capital to expand the company's service station network nationwide.
Shares can be bought next week on December 1, 3 and 4, from 8:30am to 3:30pm, and will be on offer at Lanexang Securities Public Company, and Lao Development Bank and its provincial branches.
PTL aims to increase its oil supply, buy larger quantities of oil at a cheaper price, and improve its transportation system.
Its five-year business expansion plan for 2014-2018 includes increasing the number of service stations to 204 up from the current 107 stations, increasing the number of project clients to 49, raising sales volume to 2,163 million litres, and investing 538 billion kip in Laos and 1,933 billion kip abroad.
The company deals mainly with the import-export and distribution of petroleum products such as diesel, octane 91 and octane 95 gasolines, and petrochemicals. It is also Thai Sun's oil distributor.
PTL was founded in April 2008 with registered capital of 28.8 billion kip. The capital increased to 350 billion kip (US$45 million) last year.
Its service coverage was the second largest in the Lao market from 2011 to last year, after the Lao State Fuel Company.
vientiane times
