Kathmandu, November 27

The Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project has allotted its shares to the public today, 26 days after opening applications for its initial public offering (IPO).

As per Citizen Investment Trust Merchant Bank and Sunrise Bank, issue managers for IPO of the 456-megawatt project, eligible applicants have received a minimum of 40 units to a maximum of 50 units of shares.

The national pride project had begun the process to issue shares to the public in November last year. As per the issue managers, the general public had applied for a minimum of 50 shares to a maximum of 1,000 units of shares in between October 1 and 7.

Altogether, 339,775 applicants had applied for the shares of which 334,075 applicants were eligible to receive the shares. The hydropower company had floated 15,885,000 units of shares for general public, which is 15 per cent of its paid-up capital worth Rs 10.59 billion.

ICRA Nepal had assigned Grade 4 rating to the IPOissuance indicating below average fundamentals.

Government employees have already received certain share of the project, which was issued in July of 2015. Staffers of Employees Provident Fund (EPF), Nepal Electricity Authority, Citizen Investment Trust (CIT), Rastriya Beema Sansthan and those who have their savings in EPF and CIT had received the shares.

The Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project is the largest capacity hydropower project in the country.