SINGAPORE — The first initial public offering (IPO) by a pre-school operator here drew strong interest from both institutional and retail investors, with the shares oversubscribed 21.4 times.

MindChamps’ IPO closed at noon on Wednesday (Nov 22), after it opened four days earlier. The shares will commence trading at 9am on Friday.

At the close of the offering, 5,282 valid applications for a total of 165,949,000 public offer shares amounting to about S$137.7 million were received, the company said in a press release on Thursday. It also received strong indications of interest for 432,459,852 placement shares with a total value of about S$358.9 million.

More than 30.4 million shares were offered at S$0.83 each, valuing the company at S$200.5 million.

Among the institutional investors which have subscribed for the placement shares are ICH Capital, Island Asset Management, JF Asset Management Limited, and SUTL Holdings.

Separately, CFCG Investment Partners International (Singapore), the Hillhouse Funds[6] and Target Asset Management have subscribed for an aggregate of 28,930,800 cornerstone shares.

Excluding the over-allotted shares, the offering will raise about S$46.2 million of net proceeds from both the IPO and the cornerstone placement, of which approximately S$44.6 million will be due to the company. It intends to use the net proceeds to partially repay an outstanding acquisition loan, and fund expansion plans, among other things.

MindChamps CEO David Chiem said the positive demand from investors was a “strong testament” to the company’s investment approach and education model. “Building on our leading position as the largest operator and franchisor of premium pre-schools centres in Singapore, we plan to strengthen and expand our presence overseas to take the MindChamps movement from Singapore to the world and capture the growth of the early childhood education industry globally,” he said.