First-time investors in stocks and those from rural areas made up almost half the applicants in a share issue by Sri Lankan liquid petroleum gas supplier Laugfs Gas, its chairman W. K. H. Wegapitiya said.
The Laugfs Gas initial public offer to raise 2.5 billion rupees on November 04, 2010 was oversubscribed and closed on the opening day itself.
The 22 percent stake is to be listed on the second board of the Colombo Stock Exchange.
Laugfs Chairman said the IPO drew a record 64,000 share applications and was oversubscribed by 20.2 times.
"Almost 30,000 applicants are from rural, remote areas, from northern Jaffna and Vavuniya, southern Matara and Hambantota, and eastern Batticaloa, as well as the western areas," he told a news conference. "Most of the applicants were first-timers."
The IPO also drew applications from foreign equity funds and high-net-worth individuals, he said.
Ten percent of the shares will be given to customers and dealers, 10 percent to employees and 80 percent to the public.
"Everybody will get shares," Wegapitiya said. "We want to ensure everyone who applied will be allotted a fair amount of shares."
According to the firm's basis of allotment, those who applied for up to 200 shares in any class will get the full amount and the others to be allotted in different schemes.
Meanwhile, the government completed the acquisition of Shell Gas from its Dutch owners yesterday with the launching of the new gas company Litro Gas Sri Lanka.
The new gas company Litro Gas commenced operations under the administration of state owned Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation.
Litro is also expected to issue its shares to the public shortly.
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