ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), the country’s third-largest computer memory chipmaker, said yesterday it would extend an early tender offer for the second time to buy back convertible bonds from Tuesday to Saturday in a last-ditch effort to avoid default.
As of yesterday, 70 percent of ProMOS’ convertible bond holders had agreed to sell back the US$335 million outstanding convertible bonds to the Hsinchu-based company at a deep discount, or not to exercise the “put” option, the company said in a statement yesterday.
That was 9 percentage points lower than the level of 79 percent set by the chipmaker.
Only if the tender offer were successful would ProMOS’ creditors, led by the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), inject a recently approved NT$3 billion (US$87.83 million) bank loan into the chipmaker to help it repay the debt, ProMOS spokesman Ben Tseng (曾邦助) said by telephone.
“We still hope we can clinch the deal,” Tseng said.
The company’s creditors, which hold 12 percent of the convertible bonds, agreed not to exercise their “put” option if the tender offer succeeds, a the company statement said.
The deadline for bondholders to redeem their investment is on Saturday night.
ProMOS could release the final result on Monday, Tseng said.
As of the middle of last month, ProMOS had only NT$200 million in cash on hand after it used most of the money during the two-year-plus industry slump.
The company has accumulated NT$85.9 billion in debts.
Shares of ProMOS rose 6.25 percent yesterday to NT$0.85, outperforming the benchmark TAIEX’s 0.12 percent gain. ProMOS also outperformed local rivals Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體) and Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), which rose 3.17 percent and 2.55 percent to NT$3.47 and NT$6.44 respectively.
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