Africa Oilfields to list on NSE and London exchange

Africa Oilfields Logistics Company will place up to 10 per cent of its share capital in the Growth and Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS) at the Nairobi Securities Exchange by December.

The company is racing to become the only firm double-listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) AIMS market and the NSE.

The AIMS market on the LSE, where it trades, is the equivalent of the Nairobi Growth and Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS) market and both target smaller, growing companies.

The listing will be by introduction where a company places shares for trading just like the only GEMS firm, Home Afrika. AOL said the shares will be freely transferrable across the two markets.

“This listing will provide Kenyans with an opportunity to gain exposure to their rapidly expanding domestic resources industry. Kenya’s oil and gas industry is still in its early stages, and the listing is the type of initiative the government of Kenya is putting forward for transparent and sustainable local participation,” said Africa Oilfields chief executive officer Carl Esprey.

Guernsey-based Africa Oilfields runs its Kenyan operations through subsidiary Ardan Risk & Support Services, where it took up a 49 per cent stake in August 2013 for Sh350 million ($4 million).

READ: London firm seeks Nairobi listing as it eyes oil boom

Africa Oilfields has announced it is exercising a full takeover option of Ardan under a reverse takeover deal, which will see the combined entity that will also list on the NSE rebranded Atlas Development and Support Services.

Ahead of the listing, the company has created 350,000 new shares to bring the total issued shares to 393,923,366 which will also be relisted afresh on the LSE.

The move to list 10 per cent equivalent of these shares at the NSE will see the company bring in over Sh500 million in new capitalisation to the market, going by disclosures filed last week showing that AOL expects the capitalisation of the new entity at £36.4 million (Sh5.2 billion).

Shareholders of Africa Oilfields will hold a general meeting on November 5 in Guernsey to ratify the change of name to Atlas and the listing on the Kenyan exchange.

A prior meeting on October 22 will be held to ratify the Ardan takeover.

According to the disclosures, the new entity is unlikely to seek to raise capital from its NSE listing in the short term, having satisfied its current financing requirements after the successful £7 million (Sh1 billion) fund raising in August.

The company said if any capital is raised from NSE in future it will be applied towards growing its Kenyan business. The company had cash resources of about £5.4 million (Sh775 million) as at September 23, 2014.

Ardan unaudited revenues for the six months ending June 30 stood at $20.6 million (Sh1.8 billion) while those for the full-year ending December 31, 2013 were $22.5 million (Sh1.95 billion).

All of its revenue for 2014 has been generated in East Africa. Burbidge Capital has been appointed adviser for the GEMS listing, while Anjawalla & Khanna will act as legal advisers to the deal.

Over the weekend Ardan was caught up in a labour dispute in Turkana at a Tullow Oil exploration site, but it said yesterday that the “light industrial action” did not affect the listing.