IPO

Nanofilm IPO shares priced at S$2.59; subscribed 19 times

Market capitalisation will be about S$1.7b post-placement

Singapore

NANOFILM Technologies, the spin-off company of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), on Friday lodged its final prospectus, offering 77.2 million shares at S$2.59 each for placement in its initial public offering (IPO).

Including the sale of 104.3 million cornerstone shares, the company will raise gross proceeds of S$470.1 million. Only S$190.9 million of these proceeds, however, will go to the company.

Nanofilm's founder and executive chairman Shi Xu will see a S$157.7 million payday after the sale of some 60.9 million shares in his name. Meanwhile, chief executive officer Lee Liang Huang and company executive Wei Hao will be selling 10 million and 6.3 million shares respectively.

The shares, to be listed on the mainboard, comprise around 73.4 million shares under the international offering and 3.9 million shares under the Singapore public offer, representing approximately 11.7 per cent of Nanofilm's enlarged post-IPO share capital of 658.4 million shares.

Based on its placement price, Nanofilm's market capitalisation will be about S$1.7 billion post-placement. The public offer opened at 6pm on Oct 23 and will close at noon on Wednesday.

A Reuters report cited two sources with knowledge of the matter that the bookbuild portion of Nanofilm's IPO has been subscribed about 19 times.

This comes as Nanofilm's listing will be one of the largest non-Reit (real estate investment trust) mainboard listings in recent years here. This would also be the first mainboard listing since March.

Cornerstone investors had agreed to subscribe for some 104.3 million shares amounting to around S$270 million - taking up more than 50 per cent of the offering. About 77.2 million of these shares will be new shares issued by the company while the remaining 27 million shares will be sold by Dr Shi.

The company's 13 cornerstone investors include indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, Venezio Investments, certain funds advised by Capital Research and Management Company, the Employees Provident Fund Board, Aberdeen Standard Investments (Asia), AIA Investment Management and Lion Global Investors.

Net proceeds due to the company will be used for capital expenditure on development, building of new machinery, purchase of new machinery, research and development and engineering.

Proceeds will also go towards construction, refurbishment and renovation of new and existing production facilities, and general corporate and working-capital purposes.

Nanofilm's core business units are advanced materials, nanofabrication and industrial equipment with operations in Singapore, China, Japan and Vietnam.

The company provides solutions to some 300 customers across various industries including mobile phone, automobile and camera. Some key customers include Fuji Xerox, Nikon, Canon, Microsoft and Huawei.

Dr Shi said in a press statement: "As a home-grown company, we are pleased to be able to offer this opportunity to investors to participate in our future growth journey. We are also heartened by the support and vote of confidence from our cornerstone investors as we continue to expand and strengthen our presence on the global platform."

Citi, CLSA, Credit Suisse and OCBC bank are joint bookrunners and underwriters on the IPO of Nanofilm.

KEYWORDS IN THIS ARTICLE

BT is now on Telegram!

For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes