RIL Property IPO snapped up on opening day

The Rs. 960 million Initial Public Offering (IPO) of commercial office space owner, developer and manager, RIL Property Ltd., was oversubscribed within minutes of the issue opening yesterday on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE).

RIL Property offered 120 million shares for a consideration of Rs. 8 per share.

“We thank all investors who placed their confidence in RIL and made this IPO a success. We intend to execute our business plans to cater to the strong demand for commercial office spaces in Colombo and create value for our investors.” RIL Property CEO Hiroshini Fernando said in a statement.

The publicly issued shares would represent 20 percent of RIL Properties’ total shares, with the remaining 80 percent of shares being locked-in for the next 6 months within the Yaseen family, which had previously fully owned RIL Properties.

The entity will be listed and begin trading on CSE in the first week of next month.

RIL Property subsidiary Foodbuzz (Private) Limited is the franchisee of the Singaporean Breadtalk chain in Sri Lanka with 7 outlets. The group also owns the Parkland office complex, the Readyware building, a 32,000 square foot warehouse complex and unutilized land in Colombo 02.

Rs. 694.1 million IPO funds would be utilized to refurbish the group’s Readywear building, while the remaining funds would be utilized to expand its Breadtalk franchise.

RIL Property hopes to sell its unutilized land off Morgan Road to take advantage of rising real estate prices, and open 9 more Breadtalk outlets over the next few years.

The group posted a Rs. 4.95 billion profit for the 2016 financial year through a Rs. 4.90 billion fair value gain of investment property. The top line had been Rs. 269.18 million, while the cost of sales had been Rs.80.76 million.

It had an asset base of Rs. 11.42 billion at the end of the 2016 financial year, with Rs. 875 million in longterm borrowings and Rs. 208 million in short-term borrowings.