The Minister of State for Economic Coordination, Manuel Nunes Júnior, said that with this operation, the privatization of BAI shares, held indirectly by the State, through the oil company Sonangol and the diamond company Endiama, through the public offer on the stock exchange , representing 10 percent of the bank's share capital.
"The results of this operation are positive and encouraging. It allowed the collection of more than 40 billion kwanzas, in an environment of great competition. There were more than 2800 subscription orders, which allowed 842 investors to be reached, corresponding to a demand above 150% of the total amount of the offer", said Manuel Nunes Júnior, in the closing speech of the ceremony.
Speaking to the press, the chairman of the executive committee (PCE) of BAI, Luís Lélis, considered that this is "a great moment not only for BAI, but also for the country".
According to Luís Lélis, this IPO operation, with the level of demand, above all demonstrates "great investor confidence" in Angola.
The official highlighted that the process was carried out in less than 24 months, when it was expected to be completed in 36 months.
"The bank was privately held. Today, with this IPO, we have registered just over 840 shareholders, in addition to the 54 who were the bank's founding shareholders. Today we have 1000 shareholders in the bank, we believe that in the coming months we should have more, we are confident that, as soon as people have the opportunity to read and study the prospectus, that this is an investment", he stressed.
BAI's PCE admitted that "investing in the stock market is complex", asking potential investors "to have the ability to consult their financial analysts to understand what it is to invest in shares".
"We want people, when making their investment, when analyzing their investment, their investment portfolio - some invest in land, others in real estate, in bonds -, that they also look at a new investment instrument, which are the actions", he underlined.
The official said that other international exchanges were consulted, but the choice fell to the Angolan exchange, "out of respect and consideration for those who founded the bank".
"When we went to consult other exchanges, we realized the requirements, which are not different from what is Bodiva [Angola's Debt and Securities Exchange], but we understand that, being the first Angolan private capital bank, being the first operation to issue shares of an Angolan institution, what better market to do than Angola", he stressed.
In turn, the chairman of Bodiva's executive committee, Walter Pacheco, told the press that the next challenge is to ensure that other companies, which have already shown interest, enter the stock market, highlighting the case of Banco Caixa Angola, which is at a "very advanced stage" of the process, Banco Millenium Atlântico and some companies outside the financial sector, including Somoil, which is still in the embryonic stage of the process.
"In the long term, I think we have already demonstrated that we have a system that works, maybe think about other segments, a commodity exchange, for example, this is a challenge that we have and an objective that we have for ourselves", he highlighted.
According to Walter Pacheco, Angola has 300 large taxpayers, who are required to have their accounts audited, and their publication is not mandatory, and it is satisfactory if 10 percent of them are listed on the stock exchange.
"We started with one, if two or five years from now we have 30 it is a significant growth. This is not the part that concerns us, because we feel that today there is clearly an incentive for companies to have their accounts audited and there is also a need to our companies to start publishing these accounts, because there is already a market, in the past it didn't exist", he said.
Walter Pacheco expressed confidence that this year Bodiva will have at least more than one listed company.
The chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Management of State Assets and Participations (IGAPE), Patrício Vilar, considered the moment "historic", as it was the first privatization on the stock exchange.
"Which gives us another comfort to attack the segment of national reference companies. In fact, we were missing that beginning, the end of a process of preparing this public offer, which started two years ago", he said.
