Telecommunications giant, BTCL says it is still negotiating with its employees regarding the Employee Shares Trust.
In a statement released to capital markets late last week, the Botswana Stock Exchange quoted company said that the outcome of the negotiations may have “material effect” on the share price of the recently listed company.
“Further to the cautionary that was published on 29 April 2016, shareholders are advised that negotiations are still in progress, which if successfully concluded may have a material effect on the share price of BTCL. Accordingly, shareholders are advised to exercise caution when dealing in the company’s shares until a full announcement is made,” BTCL statement read in part.
The announcement follows the suspension of the trading of BTCL shares at the BSE early this month. When the halt was lifted, BTCL cautioned its shareholders that it intends altering the terms of the BTCL Employee Share Trust in order to establish an Employee Share Ownership Plan.
“The objective of the alteration is to permit BTCL employees to directly own BTCL shares and permit them full voting and profit participation rights, together with the ability to buy and sell BTCL shares generally, as distinct to the limited ownership rights in terms of the original Trust,” reads the statement.
However previous media reports indicated that BTCL did not follow the right procedure on its intention of altering the terms of the BTCL Employee Share Trust following a successful IPO at BSE.
The BTCL shares were officially listed on the local bourse about two months ago and the allocation has been conducted in accordance with the requirements of the BSE. All applicants in relation to the 462,000,000 shares were allotted their first 900,000 shares applied for in full.
During its IPO, BTCL saw an unprecedented majority of offers made by individuals, with over 90 percent of the 462,000,000 accepted offers received from individuals and citizen owned companies. The balance was received from institutional investors, who drove the IPO to an oversubscription status.
BTCL Managing Director (MD) Paul Taylor at the time of listing admitted to the challenges they had in getting towards listing adding that time was extremely tight.
