Namchow Holdings Co (南僑投資控股), which produces baking oil and frozen dough, on Saturday said that its subsidiary in Shanghai is to apply for a listing in China.
The listing of Namchow Food Group (Shanghai) Co (南僑食品集團上海) is aimed at helping it advance its long-term development in the growing Chinese market, Namchow said.
The A-share listing is scheduled to take place next year at the earliest to make Shanghai Namchow the first Taiwanese food firm to raise funds through a listing on a Chinese exchange, the company said.
Firms listed on China’s exchanges offer two classes of shares: A shares denominated in yuan for Chinese investors and B shares denominated in US or Hong Kong dollars for foreign investors.
The Shanghai unit specializes in a wide range of products, including frozen dough, cream and cooking oil, with paid-in capital of 360 million yuan (US$56.2 million), Namchow said.
The subsidiary operates a broad production base in China with plants in Shanghai, Tianjin and Guangzhou, and last year spent NT$2.1 billion (US$71.35 million) to build a cooking oil plant in Shanghai, it added.
The unit last year posted about NT$1.2 billion in profit on revenue of nearly NT$10 billion, Namchow said, adding that the parent company owns a 96.15 percent stake in the Shanghai unit.
Namchow’s announcement was the second such plan announced last week after Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Wednesday said that its Internet unit — Foxconn Industrial Internet Co (FII, 富士康工業互聯網) — is to seek a share listing in China.
The FII A-share listing is aimed at raising funds used in a wide range of industries, such as online communication, cloud-based computing, smartphone component development and tech solution services, Hon Hai said.
FII is to use the proceeds from the listing to repay part of its bank loans and boost its liquidity, Hon Hai said.
FII is planning to sell a 10 percent stake through the listing, although no time frame was immediately available, Hon Hai added.
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