Ayrton Drug Commences Trading
As reported by the Business Week Aug 7-13,2006.Story by Edward Elorm Desewu
Trading in Ayrton Drug's shares will begin today Monday August 7 2006, after an initial public offer(IPO),according to thee World Wide Securities, the sponsoring broker.All the 35 million ordinary shares for sale to the public to facilitate the company's expansion programme and to upgrade certain facilities including working capital were fully subscribed by 3,888 investors.
Ayrton Drug now becomes the second pharmaceutical manufacturing company to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange after Starwin Products limited.Ayrton drug sales turnover for the first half of 2006 went up by 11.8% from 33.981 million cedis in 2005 to 37.999 cedis in 2006.
The company's profit after tax increased by 23% to 4.906 million cedis recorded in the first half of 2006 from 3.989 million cedis in 2005.According to the unaudited results,thecompany's first half-year profit after tax of ¢4.9 billion if annualised will translate to over ¢9.0 billion for the full year,which compares favourably with the company's own projection of ¢8.17 billion for 2006.
The company has declared an interin dividend of ¢981 million,representing 20 of profit after tax.The Ayrton presently manufactures five categories of product lines :namely, tablets,syrups,capsules,powder and creams. The company manufactures a wide range of drugs and currently has 69 products in its portofolio.