Hong Kong-based Lerado Group Holding Co (隆成集團控股) became the latest to apply for a Taiwan depositary receipt (TDR) listing on the local bourse.
Lerado planned to issue up to 100 million units of TDR, with each TDR representing one common share, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said in a statement on its Web site on Friday.
The company was founded by Taiwanese Huang Ying-yuan (黃英源) in 1988 in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province. Its main business is designing, manufacturing and distributing a wide range of infant and preschool products in the US, Europe and South America.
The company has established a retailing network of more than 1,500 stores, under the brand Henry & Jamy in China.
During the first half of the year, it reported HK$34.9 million (US$4.5 million) in profit, up 14.4 percent from a year earlier. Revenue was down 11.5 percent to HK$642.5 million during the same period, the company’s interim report released on Sept. 17 said.
The TWSE said Lerado had “tentatively planned to offer the TDR at NT$7 per unit,” equivalent to about HK$1.68 per share. The offer price represented a 44.8 percent premium over the stock’s closing price of HK$1.16 per share on Friday.
In a regulatory filing to Hong Kong’s stock exchange on Friday, however, Lerado said it hadn’t fixed the TDR offer price, nor had it finalized when it will start trading the TDR in Taiwan.
But the company said it planned to use the TDR proceeds to finance the expansion of production facilities and the development of a retailing business in China.
“The TDR issue will be the most appropriate method of raising extra funds for the group’s future business development,” the filing said.
Lerado becomes the 15th foreign listed company to apply for a secondary listing on Taiwan’s bourse this year.
As the government aims to develop Taiwan into a major fundraising platform for foreign companies in the region, there are eight currently trading TDRs on the local bourse.
They will be followed by Tingyi Holding (Cayman Islands) Corp (康師傅控股), China’s biggest maker of packaged food, which will start trading TDRs on Wednesday, and decorative light manufacturer Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd (真明麗控股) on Tuesday next week.
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