Southern Alliance Mining to raise funds in Catalist listing

MALAYSIA-BASED iron ore producer Southern Alliance Mining (SAM), lodged its final prospectus on Tuesday, offering 76 million placement shares at S$0.25 each for placement in its initial public offering (IPO).

The shares, which will be listed on the Catalist board, comprise 56 million new shares and 20 million vendor shares, representing approximately 15.5 per cent of SAM's enlarged post-IPO share capital of 489 million shares.

The IPO is priced at approximately 6.13 times price-to-earnings based on the group's FY2019 audited profit before tax, which excludes the tax credit in FY2019.

The company plans to use net proceeds of S$11.9 million from the issuance of new shares for further exploration activities, investment into mining equipment and infrastructure, acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and/or development of new mines and general working capital purposes. It will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the vendor shares.

SAM was co-founded by chief executive officer Pek Kok Sam and non-executive and non-independent chairman Teh Teck Tee who have over 30 years of cumulative experience in the exploration and mining of mineral deposits in Malaysia.

Currently, the group's mining operations are solely conducted at the Chaah Mine in Johor, Malaysia, under its 60 per cent subsidiary Honest Sam Development. It also has three other exploration assets there, which will commence operations only upon the listing of the company. Its key customers are steel mills in Malaysia and China, and trading companies.

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"Our iron ore products are sold not only to steel mills, but also to the oil and gas industry as raw materials for sub-sea pipe coating. This unique product mix brings us diversified revenue streams and market opportunities in two industry sectors," said Mr Pek in a statement.

The group is also optimistic about the company's prospects on the back of resilient iron ore demand. This comes as South-east Asian countries are expected to continue to spend on infrastructure with the support of government stimuli. SAM also expects the pipe-coating market to grow in line with increasing oil and gas activities.

Said Mr Teh: "Despite the recent economic impact caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand and price for iron ore have remained stable. SAM is well-positioned to meet the demand for our high-quality iron ore products in the region, upon the recovery of the steel and oil and gas industries as the stimulus measures is expected to drive demand."

For the first quarter of 2020, net profit stood at RM23.9 million (S$7.8 million), up 30 per cent from the year-ago period. For the fiscal year 2019, it made a net profit of RM88.2 million, reversing its net loss of RM17.2 million in FY2018. Its revenue rose 92.9 per cent to RM189.1 million in FY2019 compared to the year-ago period.

Based on its placement price, SAM's market capitalisation will be about S$122.3 million post-placement. The placement will close at noon on June 24, with trading slated to begin at 9am on June 26.

The company also intends to recommend dividends of at least 10 per cent of FY20 net profit; this is to rise to at least 15 per cent for FY21 and 20 per cent in FY22.

PrimePartners Corporate Finance is the sponsor, issue manager and placement agent for the IPO.