Investors scramble for Courts Asia's IPO

4, 396 applications were filed for the 8.9m shares.

According to a release, Courts Asia Limited announced that its initial public offering (“IPO”) received overwhelming demand from retail investors, on top of strong support from institutional investors during the book-building exercise.

The Enlarged Offering of 178,000,000 Shares offered at S$0.77 per Share by Courts Asia and Singapore Retail Group Limited (“The Vendor”) comprised:

(a) an international placement of 76,895,000 Offering Shares to institutional and other investors in Singapore and outside the United States (the “Placement”);
(b) an offering of 8,900,000 Offering Shares to the public in Singapore (the “Public Offer”);
(c) 77,920,000 Shares offered under the Cornerstone Tranche; and
(d) 14,285,000 Shares offered under the Management Subscription Tranche.

Excluding the Cornerstone and Management Subscription tranches, valid applications of public offer and indications of interest received in respect of the Offering were approximately 5.6 times subscribed.

At the close of the application list at 12.00 noon on October 11, 2012, 4,396 valid applications were received for the 8.9 million Offering Shares under the Public Offer. In total, these applicants applied for approximately 217.1 million Offerings Shares, with application monies received amounting to approximately S$167.2 million. Based on valid applications for the 8.9 million Offering Shares available under the Public Offer, the Public Offer was approximately 24.4 times subscribed.

The Placement of 76.9 million Offering Shares drew strong support from institutional investors, with indications of interest received for an aggregate of approximately 259.1 million Shares, representing 3.4 times subscription rate of the Placement Shares.

Mr Terence Donald O’Connor, Courts Asia’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are delighted with the enthusiastic institutional and public responses to our IPO. The demonstration of the investing community’s confidence in our Group’s strong fundamentals is certainly heartening. In offering quality products at affordable prices, we have built our brand and a large and loyal customer base over the years. Together with the hard work of our dedicated team, the support of our customers has enabled us to open more stores and grow our store footprint in the last three years.”