KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Friday held a gong ceremony to mark the listing of Big Bird Foods Limited (BBFL).

Big Bird Foods was established in September 2011 as a poultry processing unit to provide quality chicken products in national and international markets.

Present at the gong ceremony were Dr. Mohammad Mustafa Kamal, CEO, Big Bird Foods Limited; Mahmood Ali Shah Bukhari, CEO KTrade Securities Limited; Omar Salah Ahmed, MD Corporate Finance, KTrade Securities Limited and Danish Elahi, CEO Elahi Group of Companies and shareholder of Big Bird Foods Limited. KTrade Securities were the exclusive financial advisory and arranger for this listing. The guests were welcomed by the MD and CEO PSX, Farrukh H Khan and senior management of PSX.

Big Bird Foods Limited has been listed on the Exchange as a result of merger/ amalgamation of an existing listed company i.e. MetaTech Trading Limited (META) with and into Big Bird Foods Limited sanctioned by the Lahore High Court vide Order dated June 26, 2024. As per the swap ratio in the scheme of arrangement for the said merger/ amalgamation, the shareholders of META have been allotted 0.24 share of BBFL against 01 share of META. Subsequent to sanctioning of the scheme by the Lahore High Court, META has been delisted from PSX and BBFL has been listed with effect from August 5, 2024.

Speaking at the gong ceremony, Farrukh Khan, MD and CEO PSX, stated, “We welcome Big Bird Foods Limited to Pakistan Stock Exchange. It is indeed a valuable addition to the Food and Personal Care Products sector of the Main Board of the Exchange”.

“We at PSX encourage and support new companies to list on PSX especially through IPOs. For IPOs, we have reduced the time period of listing to 29 working days. Moreover, we have digitised the listing process through PRIDE, with the possibility of having a parallel review of companies by SECP and PSX through PRIDE for such listings. Given this convenience and the strong market performance, I would urge unlisted companies to take advantage of this opportunity whereby, through listing, they will not only raise capital for growth and pay down expensive debt but will also gain the additional benefit of enhancing their corporate governance structure, operational & financial performance as well as outlining their succession planning.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024