Armada, a Russian group offering software development and other IT services, announced last Friday that it sold 2.4 million additional shares for $13 each on Russia’s MICEX and RTS stock exchanges.
The price was a 7.14% discount to the stock’s price of $14 on the day before the operation—a common practice in SPOs, argued the company. The amount of the discount may not be considered attractive, but Russia’s stock exchanges offer few IT companies in which to invest, said an analyst at l. In the context of a growing market, this fact may explain the success of the operation.
The price was a 7.14% discount to the stock’s price of $14 on the day before the operation. The amount of this discount was considered unattractive by an analyst at Uralsib Capital, although the company maintains that discounting a stock’s price in SPOs is common practice. The analyst acknowledged that Russia’s stock exchanges offer few IT companies in which to invest, and in the context of a growing market, this fact may explain the success of the operation, reports Russian business daily Vedomosti.
Armada says it will use the proceeds from the SPO to finance selective acquisitions on the market.
Armada has been on the market since 2000 under the brand RBC Soft. In July 2007, the company completed an IPO on Russian exchanges MICEX and RTS. In 2010, the company recorded revenues of 3.66 billion rubles ($122 million) and EBITDA of 410 million rubles ($14 million) with an 11.2% EBITDA margin.
The company participates in a range of e-government programs, and because it specializes in open-source software, it could benefit from the Russian government’s plan, announced last December, to have its institutions transition to Linux between 2011 and 2015.
