Thai NFC Fertilizer to increase size of new share issuance

04 November 2004 00:19  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (CNI)--Thailand’s NFC Fertilizer has decided to increase the allotment of new shares to be issued to specific investors as part of the company’s capital raising efforts.

It also said it would seek the issuance of additional shares to cover the possible conversion of warrants to shares.

The share issuance is intended to raise NFC's total registered capital to Baht4bn ($97m/Euro76m) from Baht2.49bn.

NFC earlier said that it would sell a total of 1.51bn new ordinary shares to investors. However, in a statement issued late on Wednesday, the company said its board had decided to alter the terms of the offer to allocate a number of shares to be sold to a specific group of investors.

It said it would seek to offer 500m of the public offer shares to specific investors and the remainder to the general public.

The board also said it would now seek to issue that number of shares plus an additional 250m new shares, which would be held to cover the possible conversion of warrants to shares by NFC’s existing shareholders.

NFC’s existing shareholders who held shares in the company as of 19 May 2004, the date of the capital decrease, are eligible for free warrants, it said. The warrants would have a maturity of three years, upon which they could be converted to shares at a strike price of Baht1 per share, it said.

The fund raising is part of NFC's effort to raise badly needed working capital and to compensate shareholders who were hurt by an earlier capital writedown. NFC recently emerged from debt restructuring, after repaying its debts.

However, the company was cash-strapped and needed new funds in order to resume full production.

NFC, which is located in the Mab Ta Phut petrochemical complex in Rayong Province, has a capacity to produce 280 000 tonne/year of phosphoric acid, 460 000 tonne/year of sulphuric acid and 1.1m tonne/year of nitrophosphate.

By: Chris Myrick
+44 208 652 3214

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