Freight forwarder and logistics operator T3EX Global Holdings Corp (台驊國際投資控股) yesterday said its board of directors had approved a plan to issue 10 million new common shares to raise fresh capital to repay loans after it decided against subscribing to Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp’s (陽明海運) share offering.
Pricing for the 10 million shares has not been settled, as T3EX needs to apply for regulatory permission to issue the new shares and to set a subscription date, the company told the Taipei Times by telephone.
However, based on its closing price of NT$244 in Taipei trading yesterday, it could raise at least NT$2 billion from the share offering, it said.
Photo copied by Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
“The new capital will mainly be used to repay loans to improve T3EX’s debt ratio,” company spokesperson Linda Hsu (許琳婕) said by telephone.
T3EX had a debt-to-asset ratio of 0.53 percent at the end of March, down from 0.57 percent at the end of last year, company data showed.
The freight forwarder had not assessed the share dilution, but expected it to be mild, as the addition of 10 million new shares would be less than 10 percent of its 127 million shares, Hsu said.
T3EX on Thursday announced that it had changed its investment plan and would not subscribe to Yang Ming’s share offering, after the container shipper set its price at NT$182, it said in a stock exchange filing.
Yang Ming closed at NT$179 in Taipei trading on Thursday.
“We cannot forecast or guess how Yang Ming’s share price will fluctuate in the future,” T3EX said. “To safeguard the interests of our shareholders, we decided not to invest in Yang Ming’s new shares.”
The company’s board of directors last month approved a plan to invest up to NT$ 1 billion in Yang Ming’s share offering “to maintain good supply chain relations and for financial investment,” it said.
In the first quarter, T3EX saw its unrealized profits increase as the share price of Yang Ming, in which it owned about 20 million shares, climbed.
Despite T3EX’s pulling out, Yang Ming yesterday raised NT$29.12 billion from its 160 million common share issue, it said in a filing with the stock exchange.
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