CWT group plans private placement

Group president Weerapon Chaiteerath said yesterday that CWT was “sure” it would be able to go ahead with three renewable-power projects this year. They are biomass, municipal-waste-to-energy and industrial-waste-to-energy projects.
Each facility will have 9.5-megawatt capacity and will sell 8MW to the grid.
The company is also expected to launch three more municipal-waste-to-energy projects by the first quarter of next year. Two will have 9.5MW capacity and one will have 19MW capacity.
A financial adviser has appraised CWT at Bt4.8 per share on a discounted cash-flow basis. That figure would rise to Bt6.19 upon completion of the first three power projects.
About Bt2 of its value comes from its automobile business and Bt4 from the new power business.
CWT’s value is expected to rise to Bt15 when it accomplishes all of the six renewable-power projects.
CWT’s share price closed at Bt4.52 yesterday, up 0.89 per cent from Wednesday.
Upon the finalisation of these projects, CWT will launch a second round of private placements totalling about 200 million shares at Bt6 apiece – 50 per cent higher than the price of the first round concluded last month.
Proceeds from the two private placements, expected to total Bt2 billion, is expected to be sufficient to fund the six power projects, each of which will be 75 per cent owned by the firm.
CWT held a press conference on the agreement of its subsidiary CWT Green Power (CWTG) to acquire 49 per cent of the Blue Solar Farm 3 (BSF 3) project by next month.
The deal is subject to completion of due diligence, which is expected in a few days.
Though BSF 3 is a small 5MW solar-farm development, the acquisition is strategically important to CWTG, which needs at least one revenue-generating project to qualify for listing on the Market for Alternative Investment by 2018.
BSF3, located in Samut Sakhon province, will start generating electricity and income at the beginning of next year, while CWT’s other renewable-power projects will take at least 18 months to build after being given the go-ahead.
The MAI requires renewable-power companies to have at least one project generating revenue for at least one year prior to listing.
CWT is also expected to clinch three more biogas projects in the next six months, each with 8MW capacity.
CWT has no plan expand its original leatherwear business, mainly involving car seats, whose annual revenue is expected to stay at between Bt1.5 billion and Bt1.6 billion, Weerapon said.
However, the company has been attempting to form a strategic partnership with its Japanese customers that will help it ship more products to overseas markets, he said.
BSF3 is one of the two solar-farm projects that Blue Solar, owned by the Hansaward family, recently won under a programme to establish solar farms for state agencies and agricultural cooperatives, organised by the Energy Regulatory Commission.