Solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶能源) will seek to raise as much as US$49.7 million by issuing 28.24 million units of global depositary receipts (GDRs) — each of which represents one Gintech common share — at an average price of US$1.76 a share.
In a stock exchange filing yesterday, Gintech said it would use the proceeds from the GDR sale to repay bank loans and cut interest payment costs.
PRICING
With the pricing of each GDR equivalent to NT$60.51 for each common share (based on the exchange rate of NT$34.416 against the US dollar at the close of Taipei trading on Monday), the new shares are being sold at a 17.8 percent discount from the closing price of Gintech stock in Taiwan yesterday, when the company’s shares fell 1.47 percent to end at NT$73.6.
Gintech, whose headquarters are in Taipei’s Neihu Technology Park (內湖科技園區), began an overseas road show to market its planned GDR issuance in September last year.
COMPETITIVENESS
At the time, the company reportedly aimed to raise between US$160 million and US$170 million from the issue of 30 million GDRs and wanted to use two-thirds of the proceeds for raw material procurement and the rest for loan repayment. It delayed the issue in the face of the volatility in global equity markets.
While the GDR issuance is likely to dilute share value and earnings per share, “the capital enhancement effort would help increase the company’s competitiveness, lower its operational risk and thus benefit existing shareholders” in the long run, Gintech spokesman and chief financial officer Martin Kuo (郭彥辰) said in the stock exchange filing.
NO FOREIGN EXCHANGES
In contrast with market speculation, Gintech will not list the GDRs on any foreign stock exchange. The issue will be settled in Euroclear, Clearstream International and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp, with the Bank of New York Mellon as the custodian bank, the company said.
Gintech has a solar cell production capacity of 660,000 kilowatts a year in Taiwan. Targeting European markets, especially Germany and Spain, the company also looks to enter the Japanese market on a contract-making basis, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said in a report last month.
The company’s shares have gained 0.5 percent since the beginning of the year, compared with a 9.9 percent increase for the benchmark TAIEX index over the same period.
While sentiment for solar cell makers has improved recently as raw materials prices edged down, Gintech was rated “underweight” at HSBC Holdings PLC, which cited margin risk because of the firm’s higher exposure to long-term wafer supply contracts and therefore a lack of flexibility on sourcing raw materials.
HSBC offered a target price of NT$50 for Gintech, which represented a 32.1 percent downside from yesterday’s close, according to a HSBC client note issed on Tuesday.
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