Astra Group may hold an SPO in the next two years – Kommersant
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The Astra Group may conduct an SPO (public offering of shares owned by existing shareholders) in the second half of 2024 or 2025 to increase the share of free-float shares. The general director of the company Ilya Sivtsev spoke about this in an interview “Vedomosti”. The company completed its IPO (initial public offering) on the Moscow Exchange on October 12, placing 10.5 million shares, which is equivalent to 3.5 billion rubles, free-float amounted to 5%.
Mr. Sivtsev emphasized that an SPO will definitely not happen in the next six months, since the selling shareholders and the holder of the quasi-treasury stake have a lock-up period of 180 days (prohibition on the sale of shares). Astra also does not plan to make an additional issue for now, he clarified.
The CEO of the Astra group does not deny that an increase in the share of shares in free float is required by the company not only for liquidity, but also for the transition from the second to the first quotation list and the Moscow Exchange index. However, for this, Astra needs to hire another independent director, issue reports in accordance with international financial reporting standards (IFRS) for three years, and free-float must exceed 10%, Mr. Sivtsev noted.
The Astra Group is a large Russian developer of OS and infrastructure software for import substitution of Microsoft, IBM, and Citrix products. Company announced about the start of collecting applications for 10.5 million shares (5% of capital) on October 5, and on October 12 it closed the book with more than 20-fold oversubscription. Stock were placed at the upper limit of the initial range – 333 rubles. The placement volume amounted to 3.5 billion rubles, and the company itself was valued at 70 billion rubles.
Read more about the Russian initial public offering market in the Kommersant article. “Opening of the IPO season”.
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