Client

Initial Public Offering of
ATAL

Why do investors buy shares?

Because they want to make money!

How to encourage investors to buy shares when capital market confidence in the industry has been undermined?

ATAL S.A. is a property developer specialising in the construction of housing estates, apartments and commercial units in Poland’s largest cities.

The company had its bonds listed on the Catalyst market for the first time in December 2013.

Challenge:

Our role was to provide the developer with all-round support during the IPO process.

We designed and deployed a communication strategy that included proactive measures targeting capital market participants and the media.

As part of the strategy, we devised a uniform graphic concept used in investor materials to present the company and its growth plans using the issue proceeds, press advertisements and the investor relations tab on the company’s corporate website. The Agency was also responsible for typesetting and printing the prospectus, training the company’s governing bodies on its disclosure obligations, devising the principles of crisis management and organising the celebrations surrounding the floatation on the WSE.

ATAL carried out the IPO when investor confidence in the industry was low, with more developers filing for bankruptcy than going public. ATAL’s IPO was therefore a litmus test for other industry players, probing the level of investor interest in property development companies.

It had several key features which we believe were indicative of the ongoing evolution of the Polish IPO market, namely:

Growing role of specialist fund management companies
Relatively large share of retail investors
Limited spending on media advertising coupled with greater efforts to create a good investment climate around the company and the offering involving increased use of PR services
Focus on business prospects in the context of tough stock market conditions compared with historical performance

Key communication tasks:

The property development industry was strongly represented on the WSE. In order to attract investor interest in the stock, our priority was to differentiate ATAL from its peers by showing the strong fundamentals, attractive offering and large land bank.

The effects of our actions:

The promotional campaign supporting the ATAL SA’s IPO run by Tauber Promotion attracted strong interest from both institutional and retail investors

The IPO was a success, raising roughly PLN 143m in proceeds. The PR activities carried out by Tauber Promotion that put ATAL in the capital market spotlight helped the developer to sell all shares in the offering, with an impressive 80% reduction rate achieved in the retail tranche