Healthcare business to raise Rs409m via right issue.

KARACHI -- MetaTech Health Ltd is going to raise Rs408.8 million by offering perpetual and convertible Islamic bonds or sukuk to existing shareholders by way of a right issue.

The size of the right issue is 550 per cent of the company's paid-up capital, which means shareholders will get the chance to own 550 right sukuk for every 100 ordinary shares they currently hold.

The sukuk, issued at Rs10 apiece, will be perpetual unless they get converted into ordinary shares in the case of pre-determined trigger events.

According to Aftab Ahmed Chaudhry, managing owner of MetaTech Health, it's going to be the first-of-its-kind hybrid security or 'custody receipt' to trade on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). It'll trade like a stock and get paid like a bond, he said.

That's because the sukuk and the shares of the company will be traded through a 'twin custody receipt' or TCR. For the issuance of the TCRs, the existing shares of the company will be handed over to a trustee. No separate trading in the share will then take place. Similarly, sukuk will also be handed over to the trustee and, as such, no separate trading in the Islamic instrument will take place.

Afterwards, the trustee will issue the TCRs while adjusting the total number and the price of the hybrid security as per the applicable regulations of the PSX. The hybrid security will then be traded on the exchange...