Media Prima falls after announcing search of options aside IPO

Media Prima BHD of Malaysia, has fallen most in more than one week after the company said it was exploring other options aside an initial public offer (IPO), the Bloomberg news has reported.

Media Prima, which owns TV3 in Ghana said last Thursday December 31, 2009 that it was looking for other options apart from an earlier announced proposal for an IPO on the Ghana Stock Exhange to raise additional capital as a result of what it describes as “unfavourable market conditions.”

Following this announcement Media Prima which is Malaysia’s biggest publicly traded publishing firm, dropped most in a week. The company’s stock declined 1.2% to 1.65 ringgit at 9:17 a.m. local time in Kuala Lumpur, set for the steepest decline since Dec. 23, 2009 according to the report.

In Janaury 2009, Media Prima announced it was going to float shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange to recapitalise its operations.

The 12-year-old TV3 said it wanted to raise money so it can expand its operations to cover the whole of Ghana, replace obsolete equipment with new modern equipment, train people and provide better, superior entertainment. Adding that it wants to do even better as a business and pay shareholders decent returns.

Ghanabusinessnews.com received information at that time that listing documents for the station has been approved by the two authorizing bodies, the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

TV3 intended to float an initial public issue of 48 million shares and offer for sale 22.09 million shares by GAMA Media at a price of GH¢0.10 per share.

Media Prima after the sales would hold 51% of TV3’s capital of 172.33 million shares.

The initial share offer is expected to raise GH¢4.8 of which GH¢3.8 million would be for capital expenditure, while the rest would be for working capital.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi