VM Investments sells most of its shares in the micro-financer

Durrant Pate/ Contributor

Directors of micro-financer, Dolla Financial Services have been gobbling up company shares on the open market.

Our Today has confirmed that directors, led by company chairman Ryan Reid, Chris Yeung, Dr Michael Banbury and CEO Kadeen Mairs have bought close to J$100-million worth of Dolla shares on the open market.

Our Today can also confirm that a large chunk of these shares were bought from VM Investments Limited (VMIL), which acted as the lead broker for Dolla’s initial public offer (IPO) back in May this year.

VMIL had some 1.2 per cent of Dolla’s share equity, which amounts to some 30.8 million shares

Our Today sources say at least 20 million shares were recently bought from VMIL by the named directors of Dolla.

In addition, the directors also picked up a few more shares since then.

Dolla, through the Jamaica Stock Exchange filing, advised that, on November 17, 2022, directors purchased 20 million shares while a director and senior manager sold 72,849 shares.

Move profitable for VMIL

Based on current estimates, VMIL would have made a more than a twofold increase on its sold shares, based on the fact that the current value of the shares has gone up twofold since the J$1 per share IPO. At yesterday’s trading, Dolla shares were valued at J$3.16, going down J$0.04, with just over 1.31 million shares exchanging hands.

Dolla’s IPO, which set out to raise J$500 million, was successfully closed on the first day of opening on May 27, being oversubscribed by over J$4 billion, which was a massive show of support by investors. The micro-financing company pulled in subscriptions of J$5 billion, which is the highest IPO subscription for a junior market company.