Gullivers' listing journey begins

Shares in Gullivers Travel Group's public offer are proving harder to find than an aisle seat to Fiji during the school holidays.

The $104 million initial public offer officially closes today, but brokers have reported heavy demand and say none of the $1.60 shares is left.

"We've done our firm allocation and could have done more," said Macquarie Equities' retail financial services head, John Owen. "There's plenty of money in the market at the moment looking for a good home."

There was no public pool and few retail brokers were allocated shares.

Owen said the offer was slow to kick off in its pre-marketing phase but once public advertising was up and running, demand took off.

"Once the deal came to the market and the way they priced it, I think people decided it looked okay. People think [Gullivers] has pretty good growth prospects and it's a name people understand," he said.

Gullivers, which owns the Holiday Shoppe and United Travel franchise brands, will become the country's first listed travel agency when it debuts on the New Zealand Exchange next Wednesday. The company will dual-list in Australia.

Gullivers has issued 100 million shares, 65 million of which have been offered to investors. The remaining 35 million are being retained by founder Andrew Bagnall and other vendor shareholders.

Brokers are picking a strong local listing, given the demand for shares and sharemarket performance.

Tap and showerware firm Methven finished its debut week on Friday at $1.70 - 19 per cent up on its $1.43 issue price.

Gullivers takes the number of listings this year to well into double figures - and is the third-largest after Feltex's $243 million raising and CanWest's $104.04 million.