KARACHI: Airlink Communication, a Lahore-based mobile phone distributor, on Tuesday raised around $39 million through an initial public offering (IPO) at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), the largest private sector share offering in Pakistan’s history.
The company received bids for 147.64 million shares against 90 million shares offered in a two-day book building. The strike price was Rs71.5 against the offered Rs65 per share, according to details available at the PSX website. 
“The company received bids worth Rs11 billion in this historic IPO,” Kamran Nasir, CEO of JS Global Capital Ltd. who was also the consultant and bookrunner, told Arab News on Tuesday. “The company has raised Rs6.43 billion, the highest ever amount, through this offering.” 
In 2019, Faisalabad-based Interloop Limited, which supplies products to Nike, Adidas, Puma, Levi’s etc, had raised Rs5.02 billion. 
Airlink plans to utilize the IPO proceeds to inject working capital to expand the company’s distribution and retail network through the procurement of inventory. 
The company is in the process of vertical integration and plans to open 150 retail outlets across the country in the next five years and set up a facility to assemble both feature and smart phones, having an installed capacity of more than 400,000 units per month approximately, based on a single shift that could also be doubled up. 
In addition, it has been authorized to assemble Itel and TCL mobile phones in the said facility and is in the process of obtaining authorization from other vendors. 
The company expects its revenues to triple to Rs129 billion and net income to surge 500 percent to Rs9.2 billion by the fiscal year 2025. 
“The sales revenue growth of Airlink has grown from Rs140 million from 2012 to Rs47 billion in 2021,” Nasir said, adding, “Local manufacturing of smart phones will increase phone usage in the country by 18 percent.” 
Pakistan was previously a net importer of phones, but the South Asian nation has recently emerged as an exporter, with its locally manufactured phones surpassing the number of imported ones. 
During January to July 2021, 12.27 million phones were assembled in Pakistan as compared to the import of 8.29 million handsets. 
Pakistani stock market, which has recovered from 27,000 points since April 2020, has attracted IPOs worth around $160 million since fiscal year 2020. 
“The major reason is that the market is highly liquid, and investors have money to invest and they are doing”, Nasir said. “Besides, during the last one year, the macroeconomic side of the country has witnessed substantial improvement due to better management of the government and the low interest rate regime.” 
Analysts say an improved regulatory environment is also helping the capital market pull crowds of investors. 
“Mostly, low-priced growth stocks were offered [in Tuesday’s IPO] after a strict regulatory process,” Arif Habib Corporation Director Ahsan Mehanti said. “Before the approval of IPOs, companies are thoroughly scrutinized that minimizes the chance of failure of any share offering, while higher participation of institutional and mutual funds also strengthens the prospects for companies to raise capital from the stock market.”