Esterad withdraws bond offering

06/02/2010 00:00 AST

Following the lukewarm response from investors and tighter lending conditions, the Esterad Investment Company announced on Thursday that it would retract its BD7 million bond offering before the issue date of Feb. 10.

"The decision for the retraction was in light of the prevailing conditions of the lending markets and liquidity regionally and globally. Esterad's management thanks all investors who showed confidence in the company and subscribed to the public offering and apologizes for the retraction of the offering," the company said in a statement.

"BBK, acting as receiving bank for the issue, will return subscription funds to applicants by Feb. 7. Refunding will take place via wire transfers or mailing checks, depending on the preferred refunding method specified by each applicant in the subscription application form," it added.

Earlier Esterad, Bahrain's only publicly listed investment company, had announced the closing date for the register of shareholders who would have priority over the 4.5 percent convertible bond.

The company in its previous statement said that the bond offering would be used to fund Esterad's corporate operations and investment strategy, targeting opportunities across all asset classes.

It also announced that the five-year tenor bonds would be listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange and be convertible annually into Esterad ordinary shares three years from the issue date on the 3rd, 4th and 5th years.

Both shareholders as well as members of the general public were invited to subscribe to the offer.

Esterad currently manages more than BD75 million of investment assets.

Capital Intelligence, the corporate rating agency, rated Esterad's long-term and short-term ratings as BBB and A3 respectively in July 2009, with an overall outlook of stable.

Arab News