Addvalue Tech to defer S$6m placement, subject to shareholders' approval

THE completion of Addvalue Technologies' S$6 million share placement to Rain Asia Pacific is now subject to shareholders' approval, the mainboard-listed communications technology products developer said on Monday.

This comes as the Singapore Exchange's approval in-principle for the listing and quotation of the placement shares, which was granted on May 4, has lapsed within seven market days from that date.

Addvalue first entered into a subscription agreement to issue about 266.7 million shares at 2.25 Singapore cents apiece to Rain Asia on March 25, 2020.

In a bourse filing on Monday, Addvalue said it has received a request from Rain Asia for a "final deferment" to complete the placement, latest by June 23.

According to the company, Rain Asia has assured it that the funding commitment of S$6 million is in place, except that it would require additional time to arrange for its disbursement to the company. As a demonstration of Rain Asia's commitment to complete the placement, Rain Asia has also placed a deposit of S$1.2 million with Addvalue, up from the original deposit of S$1 million, the company said.

Addvalue previously announced on May 20 that it had received a request from Rain Asia for the closing of the placement to be deferred to May 21, as the subscriber had experienced "unexpected delay" in the transfer of the requisite funding from overseas. Rain Asia said then that the delay was in part due to the Covid-19 situation and the Ramadan period.

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This was followed by another announcement by Addvalue on May 22 noting that Rain Asia had requested to defer the closing of the placement to no later than May 29, and a June 1 announcement to further defer the closing of the placement to no later than June 10.

Addvalue said it is now working with Rain Asia to finalise a supplemental agreement for the proposed deferment of the placement, which will be subject to shareholders' approval at an extraordinary general meeting to be convened.

Among other things, Addvalue's board is of the view that it "remains in the best interest of the company and shareholders" to continue with the placement as the subscription monies when received, would constitute "significant funding" that would augment the group's immediate to mid-term working capital and funding requirements, it said.

Rain Asia is a privately-owned company established with the commercial objectives of investing into critical infrastructure (including gas-to-power and water industrial sectors), technology and real estate.

Separately, Aqua Munda which was prepared to make an offer to preference shares and perpetual securities holders of Hyflux, is a special-purpose vehicle managed by Rain Asia.

As at 10.29am on Monday, shares in Addvalue Tech were trading at 2.6 Singapore cents, down 0.1 cent or 3.7 per cent.