Nepse lists ADBL shares

Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) listed 30.37 million-unit shares of Agriculture Development Bank Ltd (ADBL) today.

"The ADBL shares will be traded from next Monday," according to the Securities Act 2063 that states, "Trading of shares of any companies will start after seven days of listing agreement between the company and Nespe."

ADBL is the 24th listed commercial bank in the secondary market that has a total of 178 listed companies under nine sub-groups -- commercial banks, development banks, finance companies, insurance companies, hydropower companies, trading, manufacturing, hotels and others.

Ace Development Bank -- the issue manager of the ADBL -- had floated the commercial bank's 9.6 million-unit of ordinary shares worth Rs 960 million on April 4-7. It is the largest primary issue in the history of the banking sector in Nepal. ADBL had earlier sold 4.52 million-unit shares to its existing shareholders -- the borrowers of the bank that has 16.25 million-unit promoters shares. "Nepse listed the total of 30.37 million-unit shares -- including promoters and ordinary shares -- of the ADBL today," the bank said.

On May 26, Ace had allotted 96,000-unit ordinary shares of the bank. A total of 138,436 people had applied for 28,510,303 unit shares in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) at the face value of Rs 100 per unit. The selected applicants had been allotted a minimum of 30-unit shares and maximum of 2,960-unit shares.

Meanwhile, the profitability of the banks and financial institutions -- that contributes to over 85 per cent in the total trading -- could not boost the secondary market as it has shed 0.54 point to close the daily trading at 453.7 points.