Victoria Mutual Building Society (VMBS) will float little over 300 million shares or 20 per cent of equity in its subsidiary, Victoria Mutual Investments Ltd on the Jamaica Stock Exchange main market. The company hopes to raise just under $700 million.

VMBS which is working to become a stronger integrated financial group and a modern mutual by 2020, will open the offer on Monday, December 11, 2017, at 9:00 am and close on Monday, December 18, 2017 at 4:00 pm.

Plans are to use the proceeds from the public offer to build the company’s capital base to grow its business of providing financing solutions and to capitalise on new business opportunities.

VMIL has its eyes on creating more financing solutions for Jamaica’s small and medium-sized entities; a sector which has an estimated demand of approximately $20 billion per year.

The investment arm, in announcing that it will commit at least $1 billion of financing to SMEs in 2018 in either debt or equity, has described the sector as the engine for growth in Jamaica and one that has the potential to earn foreign exchange through the exporting of goods or services.

“The only problem is that we are still hearing complaints that they cannot get financing. So what we did was to dig a little further and ask the question as to what is causing this, and we found that some of these small entities are not in good standing for them to access funding. So our plan is to help those clients to raise money in the market. But to get to this place they have to organise themselves and our plan is to help to get organised. It’s the first step into getting growth in Ja,” VM Group’s Chief Investment Officer, Devon Barrett said.

Barrett, in responding to concerns about where the resources will come from to sustain such investment in the SME sector on an annual basis, said the company hopes capitalise on investors who no longer have the option of investing in government bonds.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business-observer/vmbs-prepares-to-launch-ipo_119118