Bosnia’s First IPO Expected in Late November or Early December - Media

“Everything is ready for the bourse listing, and only the approval of the Serb Republic’s Securities Commission is expected. […] We expect to raise 1.2 million marka ($768,000/619,000 euro) to 1.4 million marka in the IPO,” daily newspaper Dnevni Avaz quoted on its website Fratello’s owner Mario Derajic as saying.

Earlier this year Fratello Trade signed a contract with the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private sector arm, to prepare the IPO on the Banja Luka Stock Exchange (BLSE). The exchange, based in Bosnia’s Serb Republic, is the smaller of two stock markets in the country. The bigger bourse, the Sarajevo Stock Exchange, operates in post-war Bosnia’s other autonomous part, the Muslim-Croat Federation.

Derajic said earlier this year his company planned to invest 850,000 euro ($1.05 million) in new capacity, equipment and distribution centres and that the bulk of these funds would come from the IPO.

Banja Luka-based Fratello has said it expects its sales to exceed 6.0 million euro this year, rise further to 8.0 million euro in 2009 and exceed 10 million euro in 2010, with growth driven by its expanding network. In the short term Fratello plans to open distribution centres in Sarajevo and Mostar in the Federation, in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, and in Novi Sad, the administrative centre of Serbia’s northern province of Vojvodina.

The company had sales of 5.6 million euro last year, generating a profit of 166,000 euro. No comparative figures were available.

Fratello supplies the Bosnian market and exports to Serbia and Montenegro. It says it is the second largest fish distributor in Bosnia and Montenegro.

Annual exports to Serbia and Montenegro amount to 1,400 tonnes, which is nearly half of Fratello’s annual imports of fish from all over the world, mostly via the Croatian Adriatic port of Ploce.
 
Derajic is Fratello's majority owner with 66.03%. The remainder is owned by Vienna-based Horizonte Venture Management.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bosnian marka)