Kathmandu IPO: Retail Interest High

I have to say I am very surprised by the level of interest in the Kathmandu IPO.

This comes after confirmation of the IPO where Kathmandu will offer between 166.9 million and 197.4 million shares or 84-99% of the issued capital to investors. The IPO will be valued at between $A1.65 and $A1.90 ($NZ2.01 – $NZ2.32). This will raise a total of between $NZ338.6 and $NZ457.2 million.

Economic circumstances as they are at present would at first thought be indicative that there was no money around.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago Google searches that have reached this blog with "Kathmandu" as the search subject were gathering pace.

I can inform my readers that the level of interest in this subject has at least tippled since then with a record being set for readership for the Share Investor Blog.

As before the interest comes mainly from New Zealand and Australian readers.

This level of interest shows that at retail level investors are possibly ready to take some risk again after being burned in the sharemarket and that there is spare cash around to invest.

Having said that it could just be curiosity for a major recognized brand that will end in disappointment for the company as happened with the Burger Fuel IPO in 2007.

Kathmandu has aggressive expansion plans in Australasia with the possibility of 70 stores being opened over the next 3 years.

It looks like then a large part of the IPO funds will be spent on expansion rather than paying down their very large debt - disappointing in the current economic squeeze and folly considering that same store sales and overall company profit is down.

The IPO opens on October 27 and closes on November 6 and the shares will then begin trading on the NZX on November 18.

Investors interested in buying Kathmandu shares might be better advised to see what happens to the share price post IPO after company results are announced to the market.

Present Kathmndu owners will be hoping for a good Christmas shopping season to bolster the share price because current company fortunes do not make for pleasing reading.


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