Astarta Places 18.8% Stake for $31.6m.

Astarta, Ukraine’s biggest sugar producer, announced that it had completed subscription to its IPO on the Warsaw stock exchange, with trading set to start on Aug. 11. The price per share was at the lower limit of the previously announced range, implying P/S of 3.2, P/E of 17.3 and market cap of $168m. The size of the offered stake was lowered from the previously announced 25-28% and only new shares were sold, whereas the initial plan was to also sell some shares of existing shareholders. The company plans to use the money to increase and modernize its capacities, with an eye toward increasing its market share from 3% to 10% by 2010.