19 September 2007 - Global Sweeteners Holdings Limited, together with its subsidiaries and jointly-controlled entities, one of the largest corn sweetener producers in the People's Republic of China, today announced that its public offer was approximately 58.2 times subscribed and international placing was significantly over subscribed. The share offer price was HK$2.04 per share, which is the upper limit of its stated price range, reflecting the public and institutional investor' enthusiastic response to the Group's share offer.
The share offer of the Group comprises placing and public offer of a total of 300 million new shares (prior to the exercise of the over-allotment option) in Hong Kong at a price ranging between HK$1.57 and HK$2.04 per share. Due to the satisfactory response of the public offer, the clawback mechanism has been applied, resulting in the reallocation of a total of 120 million placing shares initially available for subscription under the placing to the public offer. As a result of such reallocation, the public offer as a percentage of the share offer rises from 10 per cent (prior to the application of the clawback mechanism) to 40 per cent, while the proportion of placing shares is reduced to 60 per cent from the initial 90 per cent (prior to the application of the clawback mechanism).
At the close of application lists on Thursday, 13 September 2007, there have been a total of 129,464 valid applications pursuant to the public offer on white and yellow application forms and through giving electronic application instructions to Hong Kong Securities Clearing Company Limited for a total of 1,745,298,000 shares, equivalent to approximately 58.2 times of the total number of public offer shares initially available for subscription under the public offer.
There have been a total of 69 valid applications pursuant to the public offer on blue application forms for a total of 43,529,514 shares, equivalent to approximately 2.9 times of 15,000,000 reserved shares available to qualifying Gobal Bio-chem Technology Group Company Limited shareholders for subscription under the Preferential Offering and representing about 14.5 per cent of the offer shares. The approximate percentage of allotment based on 2,000 public offer shares for was 8 per cent. Applicants subscribing to 50,000 public offer shares will be allotted 2,000 shares. The Group’s sponsor has keen granted an over-allotment option, pursuant to which Goldbond Securities has the right to require the Company to issue no more than 45 million new shares. As of today, the over-allotment option has not been exercised. Should the over-allotment option be exercised, a separate announcement will be made.
“The satisfactory response to our share offer demonstrates the investing public’s confidence in the business model and prospects of Global Sweeteners Holding. We will enhance our profitability by leveraging our highly vertically integrated production and strategic locations of our production facilities, while taking advantage of stable supply of raw material and energy resources. We believe that with China’s economic growth and improvement in standard of living, the market demand for corn-based sweetener products will continue to rise and will sustain the growth momentum of the Group,” said Kong Zhanpeng, chairman of the Group.
The Group currently offers a diversified range of corn sweeteners including glucose and maltose syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), crystallised glucose, maltodextrin and sorbitol for food and beverage, chemical, confectionery, dairy, cosmetics as well as pharmaceutical product manufacturers. The Company is a spin-off of Global Bio-chem Technology Group Company Limited (“Global Bio-chem”, stock code: 0809), a Hong Kong-listed company specialising in corn-refined bio-chemical products and one of the world’s top three lysine suppliers.
Goldbond Capital (Asia) Limited is the sponsor of the proposed listing of Global Sweeteners, while Goldbond Securities Limited is the sole bookrunner and sole global coordinator. Goldbond Securities Limited and DBS Asia Capital Limited are joint lead managers.