Top Jamaican Bank Coming Public on NYSE (NCJ)

National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited has filed for an initial public offering of its American depositary shares, or ADSs. The bank and some selling shareholders are both filing to sell shares in the deal. No financial terms have been set, but the bank did announce in the filing that it was going to sell up to $225,000,000 in these ADRs.

The Jamaican bank’s ordinary shares already are listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange and on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange under the symbol “NCBJ,” and it has been authorized to list the shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “NCJ.”

Here is what the bank noted about its share prices on the local exchanges:

On May 18, 2012, the closing price of our ordinary shares on the JSE was J$23.69 per ordinary share, which is equivalent to US$0.27 per ordinary share, based upon an exchange rate of J$87.6425 to US$1.00 on that date. On May 18, 2012, the closing price of our ordinary shares on the TTSE was TT$1.93 per ordinary share, which is equivalent to US$0.30 per ordinary share, based upon an exchange rate of TT$6.3891 to US$1.00 on that date.

As far as the underwriters, JP Morgan is listed as the Global Coordinator and Joint Bookrunner, and Macquarie Capital is listed as the joint bookrunner; co-managers are Canaccord Genuity and CIBC.

This banking outfit claims to be Jamaica’s largest and most profitable banking and financial services group, based on consolidated total assets at September 30, 2011 and net profit for fiscal year 2011. It said:

For our fiscal year ended September 30, 2011, and the six months ended March 31, 2012, we had return on average shareholders’ equity of 23.86% and 15.55%, respectively, and, as of December 31, 2011, we had a 29.1% share of the Jamaican banking and financial services market regulated by the Bank of Jamaica, as measured by consolidated total assets.

NCBJ’s filing noted that it has 38 full-service branches and four agencies, its ATMs accounted for 34.7% of all ATM transactions in Jamaica for the six months ended March 31, 2012, and it had over 9,000 POS machines, representing 66.7% of all POS machines in Jamaica.

FULL IPO (F-1) FILING

JON C. OGG