The Ivorian government is about to sell its 23% stake in Sucrivoire in an initial public offering, which should get it a plus-value of 9.016 billion CFA francs, sources close to the operation said. The executive will finally dispose of 1.127 million shares, instead of 563,500 shares announced previously, each to be sold at 13,000 CFA francs.

At the extraordinary general assembly held last April 27, Sucrivoire conducted a two new-for-one old share split. Subsequently, the nominal value of each of the shares came to 5,000 CFA francs (from 10,000 CFA francs previously) and their volume to 4.9 million.

Sucrivoire will reserve 245,000 shares or 5% of its capital to its staff and that of Sifca, its main shareholder.

Remaining 18% stake will be sold to the public. 441,000 shares or 9% of its overall capital and 40% of the offer are reserved. 264,000 shares or 5.4% of the capital will be sold to Ivorian legal entities and remaining 176,400 shares (3.6% of capital) will be offered to non-Ivorian individual and institutional investors.

The operation takes place in a context where global sugar price fares well. It rose by about 52.36% since the beginning of 2016, according to indicators from Intercontinental Exchange, which owns and operates 23 stock markets worldwide. The increase should keep up until 2017, due to output deficit, said analysts from Platts – Standard & Poor’s division for commodity.

Idriss Linge