Grand Venture Technology ends flat in Catalist debut

Singapore

GRAND Venture Technology ended its first day flat on the Catalist board on Wednesday at S$0.275.

The home-grown manufacturing service provider, which was priced at S$0.275 a share in its initial public offering (IPO), opened at S$0.27 before bouncing back for a bit.

It reached S$0.28 at 9.16am, then hit and held on to an intra-day high of S$0.285 some 20 minutes later.

Grand Venture, which serves the semiconductor, analytical life sciences and electronics industries, has a market value of some S$65 million.

Its IPO, which saw an overall subscription rate of 1.3 times, comprised a public tranche of 800,000 shares and a placement of 42.1 million more.

Mohamed Nasser Ismail, head of equity capital markets at the Singapore Exchange (SGX), noted that the Republic is a hub for precision engineering.

He said: "In this era of high-tech manufacturing, we look forward to working alongside the company as they leverage advanced technology such as robotics and make strides into new growth areas like medical imaging and diagnostics."

According to its offer document, Grand Venture had an outstanding 12-month order book of S$20.5 million as at Nov 30, 2018.

Grand Venture was the 215th listing on Catalist, the junior board that succeeded Sesdaq in 2007.

Besides Grand Venture, the SGX has eight semiconductor equipment industry stocks, with an average price-to-earnings ratio of 7.3 times and an average return on equity of 15.8 per cent.

CIMB Bank was the sponsor and issue manager for the IPO, while CGS-CIMB Securities was the underwriter and placement agent.