According to a company statement, 106.5 million existing shares were placed at HK$9 each, which equaled a 6.74% discount to FridayÆs closing price of $9.65. The shares were offered to the market in a range from HK$9 to HK$9.35.
A number of investors are said to have jumped at the opportunity to buy shares in bulk in one of the worldÆs leading manufacturers of computer monitors and LCD TVs. The order book is said to have been filled within 20 minutes.
The early orders were concentrated to the low end of the price range, but since the company was happy to sell the shares at the bottom end of the range, sole bookrunner UBS decided to close the book early. The original plan was to continue the book-building during the Hong Kong trading day Monday.
ôSince it was a Friday night they probably didnÆt see enough momentum to push the price higher and therefore decided to go with what they had,ö one observer said. The original price range was quite high anyway he added as the share price hit a record high of $9.85 as recently as February.
The book was only about 1.5 times covered when it was closed, but more than 40 mainly Asian accounts were said to have been allocated shares.
Based on an average daily trading volume of 4.4 million shares over the past 12 months, the placement accounted for 24.2 trading days.
The old shares were placed by two separate companies, which provided 97 million shares and 9.5 million shares respectively. The smaller of the two sales came from a company wholly-owned by TPV Chairman and CEO Jason Hsuan.
Following the placement, the two selling shareholders will subscribe to the same amount of new shares, which will account for about 5.59% of the enlarged share capital.
TPVÆs share price has rallied 75% since the company completed an acquisition of Koninklijke Philips ElectronicsÆ PC monitor and flat-screen TV business for $357.8 million in September last year.
The purchase resulted in TPV becoming the worldÆs largest manufacturer of PC monitors. At the end of the third quarter last year it had a 23.3% market share in the TFT-LCD monitor market, which was almost twice the share of the second-largest manufacturer.
The acquisition also accelerated TPVÆs entry into the flat screen TV market.
However, the share price dipped 7.77% yesterday (Monday) to HK$8.90 û a fall that was greater than the placement discount.
The company has said it will use about $50 million of the proceeds to expand its LCD business and another $20 million for maintenance capital expenditure. The rest will go towards general working capital.
¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
