Yoma Strategic to use US$21.9m from first tranche of placement for property business

MYANMAR-FOCUSED investment holding company Yoma Strategic on Wednesday night said it will earmark US$21.9 million, or about one-fifth of the proceeds from the first tranche of its placement shares, for investments in its real estate business.

This will be used for The Peninsula Yangon Hotel project, and capital expenditure for development in StarCity, the mainboard-listed company said. Another US$27.6 million will go towards the refinancing of its existing indebtedness.

As at Dec 11, out of the US$108.6 million in gross proceeds raised from the first tranche of its placement, about US$59.1 million remains unutilised.

Last week, the company said that the first tranche of its placement shares were allotted and issued to VIP Infrastructure Holdings, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corporation. Following this, the total number of issued shares in the company has increased to about 2.23 billion shares.

On Nov 13, Yoma Strategic entered into a placement agreement with Ayala, where Ayala agreed to subscribe for about 474.7 million new shares in the company.

The proposed placement is planned to be in two tranches, with the first tranche comprising 332.5 million placement shares, and the second tranche comprising 142.2 million placement shares, at an issue price of S$0.45 each. This will amount to about US$155 million in total.

Geoff Howie, market strategist at the Singapore Exchange (SGX), noted last month that if fully allotted and issued, the first tranche placement will represent about 14.9 per cent of Yoma Strategic's enlarged share capital, while the second tranche will represent about 5.1 per cent of the group's enlarged share capital.

Yoma Strategic shares closed at 35 Singapore cents on Wednesday, down 1.4 per cent, or 0.5 cent, before this announcement.