New Century Shipbuilding is now looking to raise $666.4 million from its initial public offering (IPO), after slashing the offer to less than half its planned size. The company launched 560 million new shares on Friday at the maximum offer price of $1.19 each, in conjunction with its listing on the main board of the Singapore Exchange. Uncertain market conditions arising from the debt crisis in Europe led to the cut in deal size, wire
reports said. Even then, this will be the largest IPO in Singapore and South-east Asia to date this year, according to Dealogic. New Century, China's fifth largest shipbuilder in terms of orders in deadweight tons, had initially planned to sell 1.46 billion shares to potentially raise as much as $1.7 billion. The scaled-down offering consists of an nternational placement of 551.6 million shares to institutional and other investors, and
8.4 million shares offered to the public in Singapore. New Century intends to use net proceeds, estimated at $638.2 million, to 'improve the manufacturing capacity of its two existing yards, expand its steel structure production capacity, and construct, acquire and invest in offshore vessels manufacturing facilities'. (BT)
