This year’s IPO market has gotten off to a shaky start, with Melbourne-based Bitcoin Group Ltd’s bookbuild, which ended on Monday, raising just $367,902.20. The tentative listing date has been pushed back to February 8.
Executives, who hoped to raise around $20 million by selling shares, maintained a brave face by stressing that the ASX bookbuild funds don’t include application subscriptions directly sent to the Computershare register from cheque postal applications, and those processed by the company.
“We are very happy with the broad spread of new investors and the funds brought to the Bitcoin Group IPO by the ASX bookbuild service,” Chief Executive Sam Lee told Business Spectator. He was unable to disclose more about the total amount raised for now, saying the process had not been finalised.
It was always going to be a tough task to persuade investors to jump aboard in the face of the sharp market downturn of 2016. And Bitcoin Group, which provides the algorithmic service of mining the cryoptocurrency, had its own problems, having to reissue its prospectus three times due to what it said was all part of setting a precedent in a new industry.
There have been other hardships on the local IPO front to be sure. India Fund Ltd abandoned a planned IPO in 2015, saying its pitch had fallen on deaf ears. Just weeks earlier, insurance distributor Greenstone scrapped its $1.3 billion share sale.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2016/1/26/industries/bitcoin-groups-battle-bookbuild
