APS Bank plc has revealed the extent of its hugely successful Initial Public Offering (IPO), following its opening to the public and closing on the same day.

APS opened a share offering of 100,000,000 new shares at the price of €0.62 each on 3rd June, which was met by such a tremendous response that the additional 10,000,000 new shares set aside in case of over-allotment were also taken up.

The bank has since announced that an aggregate amount of 69,681,981 new shares were pre-allocated to authorised intermediaries according to pre-allocation agreements between APS, the registrar and each relevant applicant and authorised intermediary.

As a result, the remaining 40,318,019 shares, which includes those under the over-allotment option, were made available for subscription by preferred applicants and the general public, with applications for a total of 101,611,740 shares being received, highlighting the staggering demand when compared to the number of available shares.

This was further highlighted by the fact that all those applications came in within a day, indicating a remarkable interest in them.

While determining the allocation criteria, APS’s Board of Directors considered that all applications should be met in a way that “ensures smaller investors are not crowded out of the investment process”.

This re-allocation was done through a scaling down of preferred applicants in favour of the general public in order to make sure a balanced allocation outcome would be reached.

Preferred applicants were essentially made up of APS employees and existing bondholders, with these comprising 516 applications for a total of 15,578,761 shares.

Applications from preferred applicants were satisfied in full, in the case of those up to and including 25,000 new shares, while those with more than that number were given half of the additional amount.

As a result, APS will be allocating 72.86 per cent of the total number applied for by preferred applicants.

Contrastingly, just 33.67 per cent of the total amount applied for by the general public will be satisfied, with there being 4,430 applications for a total of 86,032,979 shares.

APS will be allocating shares for applications received from the general public in full when it comes to applications that are up to and including 5,000 new shares.

Applications with a greater number of shares will receive the initial 5,000 in full, while receiving 13.5139 per cent of the remaining balance.

APS CEO Marcel Cassar confirmed on the same day of the early closing that over €80 million was raised in new equity capital, a significant rise from the €66 million that was being targeted prior to the IPO’s opening.

Mr Cassar also remarked that the IPO was not closed earlier to ensure things moved forward “in an orderly manner”.

Commenting on this, Rizzo, Farrugia & Co director Edward Rizzo remarked that while the share issue was positively received, particularly with regards to the placement of €41.4 million by anchor investments, the degree of the demand by such a “large cross-section of the retail investing community” in such a short space of time is “possibly the biggest surprise”.

Similarly, Jesmond Mizzi, Managing Director of Jesmond Mizzi Financial Advisors, highlighted how 70 per cent of the IPO was sold at pre-placement stage.

“This is good news for Borza [The Malta Stock Exchange] and I hope that the equity will continue to attract investors once the shares are listed,” he said.

Following the oversubscription and the IPO’s early closing, APS amended the timetable of events related to the IPO, with the date of the announcement of basis of acceptance being changed from the original 24th June to 13th June.

Additionally, the issue date and date of admission of the shares to listing were both moved forward from 30th June to 17th June, while the date of commencement of trading of the shares was updated to 20th June from the initial 1st July.

Due to the exceptional interest, APS also stated that unallocated monies will be refunded on 20th June.

APS Bank’s Board of Directors thanked the investing public “for such a massive show of confidence,” while also thanking those that helped ensure the IPO’s success.