China Everbright Water places out 120.7m new shares at S$0.94 each

WATER treatment firm China Everbright Water Limited is placing out 120.7 million new shares at S$0.94 each to raise S$113.4 million for growth and expansion purposes. The firm said in an announcement early Tuesday morning that the money came from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Dalvey Asset Holding (DAH).

The subscription shares represent 4.9 per cent of the firm's existing and paid-up share capital, and 4.6 per cent of the enlarged issued and paid-up share capital.

The price was at a discount of 9.4 per cent to the weighted average price of S$1.0369 per share when the firm was last traded.

Everbright Water debuted on the Singapore Exchange mainboard last month. It is 78 per cent owned by Hong Kong-listed China Everbright International, which is linked to China's state-owned Everbright Group.

Everbright International completed a S$1.2 billion reverse takeover of Singapore-listed water treatment firm HanKore Environment Tech. The combined group owns 41 water treatment projects with a total capacity of 3.5 million tonnes of water a day.

Both investors previously did not hold any shares in Everbright Water, but are familiar to the firm. IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, had extended a loan to a subsidiary of Everbright International. IFC will subscribe for 49.7 million shares.

DAH is wholly-owned by a fund of private equity firm RRJ Capital. DAH will subscribe for 71 million shares. RRJ is a minority shareholder of Everbright Water. RRJ's co-chairman and co-chief executive Charles Ong was once chief investment officer and chief strategy officer at Singapore government-owned investment company Temasek Holdings.

The trading halt on Everbright Water will be lifted today.