By Sergey Krotov
There are 843 new shareholders in Minsk Plant of Sparkling Wines, thanks to the IPO; 809 are individuals (owning 82.21 percent of shares) while 34 are legal entities (17.79 percent). “We believe that the goal of free and open access to shares has been met. Privatisation really has been public,” stresses the Director General Leonid Kravchuk. He underlines that this proves that no administrative coercion has been used to acquire shares. “Only six shareholder companies connected with the concern (of about 60) have purchased shares; some are also considering a similar public sale of shares, as are several distilleries and the Slodych Factory. All others are private enterprises,” notes the head of plant.
Men and women have shown similar interest; 55.3 percent of shares are owned by men, mostly from urban areas. Of female buyers, most are from rural areas, notes the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Minsk Plant of Sparkling Wines JSC, Deputy Chief Engineer Alexey Rubets.
Mr. Kravchuk mentions that interest in buying shares in Minsk Plant of Sparkling Wines JSC intensified in the final days of the IPO. “I’m sure that, if the operation had been extended by at least another week, we’d have sold the whole share package,” he emphasises. The Head of the Possessory Supervision Department of State Property Management of Belgospishcheprom, Sergey Bubenko, agrees, saying, “This project failed to be fully implemented, for objective reasons. One is that people delayed purchasing. We even received complaints from citizens who went to the bank on the last day and found they were too late to buy shares.”
“Belgospishcheprom believes that the key goals of this pilot IPO project have been achieved, with successful results. We consider such methods of fundraising to be highly effective for enterprise development. We realise that additional financial resources do exist for the enterprise in Belarus — including from citizens,” stresses Mr. Bubenko. One of the main goals of the national IPO was to provide the opportunity for citizens to participate in the privatisation of the enterprise, using available funds; happily, this has been achieved.
“Since the last day of our shares sale, we’ve felt a real change in ourselves. Today, all who have purchased shares are shareholders; we are one team, working to prove the competence of this project through dividends. In our opinion, this has been a good move,” concludes Mr. Kravchuk.
