Market analysts welcome GCB's Share Offer

Accra, May 22, GNA - Market analysts at Gold Coast Securities Limited, a leading brokerage firm in Ghana, on Tuesday welcomed Ghana Commercial Bank's (GCB) share offer as coming at the right time to meet the expectation of investors who would take advantage of the offer and make some gains as well as increase the number of their shares. "Looking at the bank's good financial results, dividend yield of 8.1, the price trend ... we expect the offer to be successful," declared a GCSL analyst on Monday.

In a statement signed on Tuesday by Mr Ekow Quarcoo, Director, Public Relations, said top officials at GCB and the offer's manager, Strategic African Securities (SAS), have described the offer as a glittering investment opportunity open to shareholders and non-shareholders at home and abroad.

This decision, the statement said, which clearly explained the bank's efforts at using international road show to communicate the terms and highpoint of the floatation to selected Ghanaian communities abroad. It said while a nationwide educational campaign on the offer took off from Wa in the Upper West Region on Monday May 21, similar educational road shows had been slated for the benefit of Ghanaians living in major European and American business centres.

The statement said Ghanaians in the Diaspora seemed excited about Ghana Commercial Bank's share offer of launching the Rights Issue, which had put up 75 million new ordinary share at 6,000 cedis per share. "Many Ghanaians domiciled abroad, especially those living in the United Kingdom, Germany, Holland, Italy, Canada and the United States, are reported to be calling relations back home for details on the offer since it opened one week ago."

A release issued by the bank at the weekend announced that a two-leg European road show had been scheduled for the Cumberland Hotel in Central London, UK, on Friday May 25, Dusseldorf, Germany, on Sunday, May 27.

The American road show would follow in New York City on Thursday, May 31, and Washington DC on Friday, June 1, 2007. The Ghana Commercial Bank Rights Issue opened May 15 and would close at on Friday June 15.