October 1 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian investment firm Agria Group Holding expects to raise at least 15.3 million levs ($11.2 million/7.8 million euro) in a planned initial public offering (IPO) of 25% of its capital on the stock exchange in Sofia at the end of the year, the company said.
"The company will raise its capital to 6.8 million levs through the issue of 1.7 million shares," the company's press relations officer Anna Belchinska told SeeNews on Monday. "The new shares [equalling to 25% of the share capital] will be floated on the stock market."
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The new shares will have a par value of 1.0 levs each and a minimum issue price of 9.0 levs, as the price will be determined through book-building. The company's registered share capital is 5.1 million levs.
Agria's IPO is due to take place in December.
"Agria's own capital is seen reaching 30.7 million levs at the end of the year," Belchinska said.
The company's own capital totalled 17.2 million levs at the end of last year.
Agria will spend the money it has raised on capital hikes of its subsidiaries and on its investment programme until 2012. "The bigger part of the money will go for the planned construction of vegetable oil and biodiesel units [in Devnya, northeast Bulgaria]," Belchinska added.
Agria Group Holding manages seven companies, including cereals and edible oils producer and trader Kristera, three bakeries in the Black Sea city of Varna and the cities of Shumen and Gorna Oryahovitsa, and a farming company. The company cultivates 5,500 hectares of arable land, 250 hectares of which are owned by the group. It will aim to increase its farm land to 1,500 hectares by the end of 2009.
The group expects its pre-tax profit for this year to almost triple and reach 1.8 million levs. Full-year sales revenue is seen at 48.7 million levs, up by 2.9% year-on-year. Agria reported an 893,000 lev pre-tax profit and 26.5 million levs in sales revenue for the first half of 2007.
(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)