OMNI Debuts on Junior Stock Market

OMNI Industries Limited has successfully listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, JSE, Junior Market.

The company began trading under the symbol OMNI, on Tuesday, June 11.

Despite the challenging times, OMNI’s 500 million Ordinary Shares were oversubscribed.

Its initial public offer, IPO, allowed the company to raise capital of $500 million and to add 2,686 investors to its register of shareholders.

OMNI’s listing brings the total number of securities listed on the Junior Market to 47 and the total number of companies listed on the JSE to 104, altogether representing 153 securities.

OMNI is the first listing on the Junior Market since the start of the year.

It comes at a time when the JSE is celebrating its 55th anniversary and extended the market’s trading hours by one-and-a-half hours, which allows a quicker settlement cycle for investors and more time to transact in the market.

Managing Director of the JSE, Dr. Marlene Street Forrest, says this augurs well for the economy and for wealth creation and for long-term investment.

Meanwhile, including the $500 million raised by OMNI, the total capital raised by the companies listed on the Junior Market now amounts to just over $21 billion.

With OMNI’s market capitalisation of $2.5 billion, the overall market capitalisation of the Junior Market now stands at $143 billion.

The overall market capitalisation of the combined markets stands at $1.82 trillion.

On its first day of trading, the availability of OMNI’s shares on the Junior Market was met with high demand.

It brought enthusiastic applause from the audience, when they were informed during the listing ceremony that trading of OMNI’s shares had to be halted due to the vigorous demand for the stock and an increase in price which triggered the JSE’s Circuit Breaker Rule.

The rule is activated when a stock’s price rises above 15 per cent or falls below 15 per cent of its price during the trading day.

OMNI began trading at a list price of $1 and increased to $1.30 at the end of its first trading day, on Tuesday.

This represents an increase of 30 per cent in the stock price.