KUALA LUMPUR: S P Setia Bhd suspended trading of its shares yesterday afternoon to initiate the book-building process for its placement of new units.
S P Setia, the largest property developer in Malaysia by market capitalisation, intends to place up to 300.81 million new shares of 75 sen each, or 15% of the current issued units of 2 billion.
The number of new shares could reach 322.7 million should the warrants and employee share option scheme (Esos) shares be exercised.
Based on the indicative share price of RM3.24 as stated in S P Setia’s circular last November, the group could reap up to RM1.05 billion from the placement.
S P Setia said the immediate funds from the placement “will be significant” to the group, based on the number of projects it has in hand and the sheer size of each of the projects.
The group intends to use proceeds from the placement to partially finance the redevelopment of the Battersea Power Station in London (pic) and the development of the Qinzhou Industrial Park in China and various other projects.
“The proposed placement will also further our group’s balance sheet, thereby increasing our capacity to optimise and accelerate the development life cycle of our current projects without limiting our future plans,” said S P Setia.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 8, 2013.