Lanosia has a small but growing manufacturing industry in pharmaceutical products, although it remains largely reliant on imports. The Lanosian government has been keen to promote the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry through purchasing local pharmaceutical products, providing government grants and reducing the industry’s corporate tax rate. It also imposes large duties on imported pharmaceutical products which compete with the ones produced locally.
Although politically stable, the recent worldwide financial crisis has had a significant negative impact on Lanosia. The country’s national debt has grown substantially following a bailout of its banks and it has had to introduce economic measures which are hampering the country’s ability to recover from a deep recession. Growth in real wages has been negative over the past three years, the economy has shrunk in the past year and inflation has remained higher than normal during this time.
On the other hand, corporate investment in capital assets, research and development, and education and training, has grown recently and interest rates remain low. This has led some economists to suggest that the economy should start to recover soon. Employment levels remain high in spite of low nominal wage growth.
Lanosian corporate governance regulations stipulate that at least 40% of equity share capital must be held by the local population. In addition at least 50% of members on the Board of Directors, including the Chairman, must be from Lanosia. Kilenc Co wants to finance the subsidiary company using a mixture of debt and equity. It wants to raise additional equity and debt finance in Lanosia in order to minimise exchange rate exposure. The small size of the subsidiary will have minimal impact on Kilenc Co’s capital structure. Kilenc Co intends to raise the 40% equity through an initial public offering (IPO) in Lanosia and provide the remaining 60% of the equity funds from its own cash funds.
Required:
(a) Discuss the key risks and issues that Kilenc Co should consider when setting up a subsidiary company in Lanosia, and suggest how these may be mitigated. (15 marks)
(b) The directors of Kilenc Co have learnt that a sizeable number of equity trades in Lanosia are conducted using dark pool trading systems.
Required:
Explain what dark pool trading systems are and how Kilenc Co’s proposed Initial Public Offering (IPO) may be affected by these. (5 marks)