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Ugandan unit of Indian drugs firm Cipla raises $41 mln in IPO: broker

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The Ugandan unit of India’s pharmaceutical giant Cipla raised 155 billion Ugandan shillings ($41 million) from its initial public offering (IPO) that was oversubscribed, a brokerage that helped advise on the transaction said on Monday.

Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Ltd (CQCIL), majority owned by India’s third-largest drugmaker, sold 657 million shares equivalent to 18% of the firm’s total equity.

Each share in the IPO was priced at 256.5 shillings.

John Porter, chief business officer at brokerage Renaissance Capital, told Reuters interest came from local and international investors.

“The offering has been oversubscribed with the major part of the demand coming from blue-chip Sub-Saharan Africa investors,” Porter said, speaking during a function to launch the firm’s debut trading on Uganda Securities Exchange (USE).

He did not say by how much the IPO was oversubscribed.

Cipla Quality Chemical Industries Ltd, established in 2005, has a factory in Uganda’s capital Kampala and makes a range of drugs including antiretrovirals, anti-malaria and drugs to treat Hepatitis B and C. Most of the drugs are sold in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The IPO is the first on Ugandan bourse, a small exchange of about 17 equities, since 2012 when the country’s sole power distributor Umeme Ltd went public.

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