Afrinvest opens N5bn Equity fund

Afrinvest West Africa (Afrinvest), Member of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has today August 11, 2008 opened its N5.0 billion Initial Public Offer (IPO) in the Afrinvest Equity Fund (Authorised and Registered in Nigeria as a Unit Trust Scheme).

This is contained in an electronic copy of the Offer made available to Proshare NI in Lagos Nigeria.

The company in the Prospectus affirms that the minimum investment one or joint Unit holder(s) may make in the Fund is N50, 000.00 representing 500 Units of the Fund at a price of N100 per unit. “The unit of sale is 500 Units and multiples of 100 Units thereafter” the Prospectus stated.

“Thereafter, additional Units in the Fund shall be issued in multiples of N10, 000.00 and shall be subscribed for in those multiples” the document further affirmed.

In the same vein, Afrinvest also confirmed that the fund is open-ended and investors will be free to subscribe to its units through the Manager or any other Agents approved by the Manager after the IPO.

“Therefore, although the Fund has an initial target size of 50,000,000 Units, the Fund Manager will issue additional Units of the Fund to subscribers on demand after the initial tranche of 50,000,000 Units has been fully subscribed, subject to Securities & Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) approval of the additional units” the company said.

However, 10 percent of the Offer has been preferentially allotted to Afrinvest West Africa Limited.

This allotment is in compliance with current regulations issued by SEC that promoters of unit trust schemes in Nigeria must subscribe to a minimum of 10 percent of the initial issue of such schemes.

However, the Five-Year financial summary of the Fund Manager as contained in the Prospectus and extracted without adjustment from its audited financial statements for the nine months ended December 31, 2007 and Five-Years Ended March 31, 2007.

Gross Earnings of the company increased from N162.560 million in year 2003 to N1.433 billion in the nine months ended December 31, 2007 indicating an increase of 782 percent in the review period.

While Profit before Tax (PBT) also grew from N5.088 million in year 2003 to N259, 780 million in the nine months ended December 31, 2007 representing a growth of 5006 percent in the period under review.

Profit after Tax (PAT) also rose from N1.152 million in year 2003 to N236.695 million; also in the nine months ended December 31, 2007; showing a rise of 20446 percent.

Issuing House to the offer is Guaranty Trust Bank Plc (GTbank); application list opens today Monday August 11, 2008 and closes Wednesday September 17, 2008.

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