Gourmet dairy producer’s shares, up by a third on Bucharest Stock Exchange debut

The shares Agroserv Mariuta, a Romanian gourmet dairy producer known for the brand “Laptaria cu Caimac”, debuted on the Bucharest Stock Exchange’s AeRO market on Friday at a price of RON 63 and then slowly declined towards RON 57.5. This translated into gains of 27% to 40% for the investors who participated in the company’s pre-listing private placement at the end of April. The company's market capitalization stabilized at around RON 100 mln (EUR 20.3 mln).

Agroserv Mariuta raised RON 19.4 mln (EUR 3.94 mln) in the private placement managed by local brokerage firm BT Capital Partners. This was the biggest such transaction carried out so far by a company listed on the AeRO market. In the private placement, the company sold its shares at RON 45, for a valuation of close to RON 78 mln (EUR 15.8 mln).

On the first day of trading on AeRO, the company’s shares, which trade under the ticker symbol MILK, had an average price of around RON 60, up 33% compared to the private placement price.

“The last half of the year was an effervescent and full of achievements period for Laptaria cu Caimac. If at the end of 2020 we made the first step on the capital market with a bond issue, today we carried out the offer to investors by becoming a listed company. These are two important moments for us, and the answer received showed us that in these three years of activity we have managed to successfully position ourselves on the market segment we were targeting, the premium one, and to become a company of interest also for capital market investors, not only through our quality products,” said Adrian Cocan, Founder and Project Manager of Laptaria cu Caimac.

“We have ambitious plans. The funds raised allow us to move forward with the development of the bottle and jar washing station, through which we aim to recycle and reuse the packaging of our products. In this way we can achieve our main goal, to be a carbon-neutral company in 2030,” he added.

Agroserv Mariuta had sales of RON 48.7 mln (EUR 10 mln) and total revenues of RON 74 mln (EUR 15.2 mln) in 2020. The company ended the year with a loss of RON 6.16 mln (EUR 1.26 mln). This year, it expects to increase sales by 28%, to RON 62.5 mln (EUR 12.7 mln) and to return to profit, with an estimated net result of RON 3 mln.

By 2025, it plans to reach sales of RON 103 mln and a net profit of RON 23.4 mln, according to financial projections included in the listing memorandum.