Razguliay Group (RTS ticker: GRAZ) said this effort had been its first public offering in Russia. The company managed to attract $144 million by offering 30 million shares on the Moscow Inter-Bank Currency Exchange and the Russian Trading System stock exchange at the maximum price of $4.8 per share, the statement said.
MDM Bank, a leading Russian commercial bank, and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein of Germany were the IPO managers.
Core institutional investors initially offered the price of $4.50 per share but as the number of bids grew, MDM Bank and DrKW managed to move the price range to the upper boundary and the issue was finally more than six times oversubscribed.
The holding's market capitalization rose to $509 million. The RTS and the MICEX will launch trading in the company's shares from March 6.
Commenting on the holding's success, its president Igor Potapenko said: "We are very satisfied with the success of this deal, which is a landmark event for the company. We are convinced that the degree of interest and demand for the shares observed in Russia and overseas proves the company's future success and the success of its initial offering."
Razguliay Group is an agro-industrial holding engaged in the production, processing and sale of agricultural raw materials. The holding includes grain and sugar divisions. The holding's enterprises are based in the northwestern and central regions of Russia, the Volga area, the North Caucasus, the southern Urals region and West Siberia.
Russian companies are generally thought to be heavily undercapitalized and in need of raising their market capitalization to face increasing competition from Western companies.
