Investors want in on Main Event

IT TOOK less than a minute for investors to snap up shares in Main Event Entertainment Group, with demand eclipsing the available 60 million units on the opening day of what should have been a two-week offer period.

Stockbroker and arranger of the initial public offering, Mayberry Investments Limited, says it will advise the allotment of shares by Thursday.

“So far it is oversubscribed and we’re still counting,” said Mayberry CEO Gary Peart shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday.

“We honestly don’t know the final numbers at this point, but I can say that already we are looking at more than three times,” Peart told Gleaner Business.

The Main Event IPO priced at $2 per share had a fundraising target of $120 million. Most of the shares were earmarked for special groups, leaving only 6.6 million or 11 per cent for subscription by the general public.

“By rule, we have to send out the basis of allocation within 48 hours after the close, so by 9 a.m. on Thursday, we need to indicate the basis of allocation,” Peart said, referencing stock market rules.

Main Event is an event management outfit that is well known within corporate circles. It will become the third entertainment company to list on the junior market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange, and the fourth overall to trade on the various platforms of the exchange. The company, led by Solomon Sharpe as CEO, is going public more than twelve years after its incorporation in 2004.