Investment and brokerage outfit Barita Investments aims to set a new capital raise record with its second additional public offering (APO), which opens this week. Having set the record last September with its first APO, which raked in $13.5 billion, the biggest capital raise at the time, the company will be offering 125 million ordinary shares to the public.

Barita plans to exercise its option to upsize the amount issued by 62.5 million shares to raise a record $15 billion, thereby eclipsing its previous record.

Proceeds from the second APO will be used to provide additional capital for deployment in Barita’s growing investment pipeline. The APO opens on September 3 and closes on September 21.

The price has been set at a discounted rate of $80 per share. Since the first notice of the APO, the stock price moved up from the low $83.90 to $92.77. With the proposed price of $80, this would represent a discount of nearly 14 per cent. In an advisory posted on the website of the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) last week, Barita said the new ordinary shares will be reserved for the benefit of certain specified investors in amounts determined at the discretion of the company.

The investment company and brokerage house did not specify the investors for whom shares would be reserved and the amount that would be reserved for those investors. The original notice to the JSE on August 5, stipulated the APO would be for up to 160 million units that could be upsized by 80 million shares.

The board of directors of Barita on August 23, 2021, passed two resolutions making way for the APO to be effected.

Barita reported profit after tax for the June quarter of $1.6 billion, up a strong 62 per cent from $990 million reported in 2020 June quarter. The investment company and brokerage house ended the quarter with earnings per share of $1.48 versus $1.21 in 2020. Earnings for the nine months ended June 30, 2021 at $3.38 per share from after tax profit of $3.67 billion, up 82 percent from $2 billion in 2020. An interim

dividend of $3.02 has been declared for the nine month period to shareholders on record at the close of business of September on September 23. This payment equates to 89.6 per cent of the J$3.38 earnings per share for the nine-month period.