DEMETRA made its entrance on the stock market at a premium of 16 per cent yesterday as one of the largest listings to date opened at the top end of analysts’ predictions.
The co-op investment firm, which allotted shares at £1.00 in its February IPO, opened at £1.16 yesterday and hit a high of £1.20 before falling back to a close of £1.15. Turnover in the company was the highest on the market with more than 1.9 million shares changing hands.
High turnover in the stock is expected since some 200 million shares have been floated on the market, with 40 million warrants.
"For the size of the firm the opening price is unprecedented," said Adonis Yiangou of Expresstock.
However, he said investors should not start expecting that the stock would start advancing in leaps and bounds.
"This is an option for conservative investors – people taking their deposits out of an account with steady interest to something which offers slightly more in the way of yields," he said.
Demetra executives said they were pleased with the opening price. "It is at a level which satisfies us, and investors, I think. It opened above par," said spokesman Andreas Erakleous.
Earlier in the session, Demetra announced its net asset value of £1.01, and that also helped the stock.
Other investment firms have not been so lucky, with some of them still trading below their par or issue value as the shine of seemingly lucrative IPOs and private placements is beginning to wear thin.
Other executives of Demetra were loathe yesterday to talk to journalists about future plans of the company, which was rumoured to be sitting on the sidelines for weeks waiting for the market to start ascending again before floating its shares.
"We are trying to talk less and do more. We will work within our rights as a private company," another said blandly.
It was not immediately clear if the same answer would apply to shareholders.
In the broader market, the Cyprus Stock Exchange benchmark index barely budged. It closed 0.05 per cent lower to a close of 549.51, registering considerable swings on intraday speculation throughout the 90 minutes.
Traded value was £31.7 million on a turnover of 16.6 million shares.
Declining stocks outpaced advancers 61 to 34 and 14 were unchanged on 109 issues traded.
Six sectors of the market ended flat. Tourism shares ended 0.4 per cent down despite a surge in Cyprus Tourism Company, which led net gainers across the board with a 4.8 per cent jump to £8.39. Astarti and Libra nil-paid rights were down 18 cents each, while Agros Proodos lost 25 cents.
Companies in the "other" category climbed 0.7 per cent, prodded up by a 33 cent jump for ShareLink to £22.50 and by newcomer L.K.Globalsoft.Com which rose 13 cents to close at £5.82 on a turnover of 520,445 shares.
* Businessman, Paris Lenas has been appointed as Chairman of the new Cyprus Stock Exchange (CSE) Board, while Andreas Charalambous is the new Chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).
The appointments, approved on Wednesday by the Cabinet, were announced yesterday.
Renos Christodoulides has been appointed CSE Vice-Chairman, and Symeon Kassianides, Akis Cleanthous, Zinon Pofaides, Pieris Hadjipieris and Eleni Marangou as members.
The new Chairman of the SEC, which is the stock market’s watchdog, is a senior Finance Ministry official.
Andreas Charitou, Haris Potamaris and Doros Loizides have been appointed as new SEC members while Yiangos Demetriou is the new representative of the Central Bank in the SEC.
