PTTEP gets nod for preferential public offering
PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP) is geared up for the book-building for its 650 million new shares to be issued in November.
In a statement to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the company said the board had approved the preferential public offering of the shares, to finance its massive overseas expansion, which includes the acquisition of Cove Energy. Earlier a shareholders’ meeting in August was cancelled due to confusion mainly among foreign investors over the offering method. PTTEP’s executives recently completed roadshows to assure investors that the offering would not only benefit the biggest shareholder, PTT, and explain why it needs the huge funding.
Tevin Vongvanich, president and CEO, said that after the company’s board decided to revise the offering method, book-building will be adopted to better reflect demand and offer price.
"We will open for our existing shareholders the right to book the shares first. If our existing shareholders do not fully subscribe to the new issue, we will offer the unsubscribed part to institutional investors," he said.
"We believe our investors would understand our business strategy and would agree with our business plan," he said.
The company expects the recapitalisation to be completed by the end of this year. A shareholders’ meeting is scheduled for October 29, 2012.
The company has already to appointed Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Tisco Securities, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Finansia Securities, Phatra Securities, and UBS Securities as joint book-runners for the book building.
Meanwhile, analysis by Asia Plus Securities said the new share issue would raise shareholders’ confidence in its business plan.
"We believe that PTTEP will get capital of at least Bt98 billion in the price range of Bt150-Bt152 per share. Shareholders should be allocated one new share for five existing shares," it said.
The house expected PTTEP to post net profit of Bt18.5 billion in the third quarter of this year or up 138.8 per cent from the second quarter of this year.
PTTEP’s share price closed at Bt160.50 per share yesterday, up Bt3.50 per share or 2.23 per cent from Wednesday’s close.
