Monitor maker eyes 6b yuan in placement

China's BOE Technology Group, a personal computer monitor component maker listed in Shenzhen, said it planned to raise as much as six billion yuan from a private share placement to fund a new production line and repay bank loans.

BOE plans to sell between 300 million and 850 million A shares for at least 5.47 yuan apiece, the company said.

The minimum price represented a 30 per cent discount to the stock's closing price yesterday of 7.85 yuan.

The Beijing-based firm will spend 2.2 billion yuan of the proceeds to build a 4.5-generation thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) production line, which requires an investment of 3.11 billion yuan. The company cited an increasing shortage of small- and medium-sized displays.

TFT-LCDs are used in television screens, flat panel displays, mobile phones and projectors.

BOE also plans to use US$300 million of the funds raised to repay debts and 182 million yuan to increase liquidity. It had 10.8 billion yuan of debt as of the end of June.

The company also said yesterday it had scrapped plans to sell a TFT-LCD production unit after it swung to a profit, and instead intends to invest US$90 million yuan in the unit, which owns a fifth-generation display production line.

It had said in March that it would sell 73.54 per cent of a TFT-LCD production subsidiary to its state-owned parent and another investor.

BOE posted a net loss of 173 million yuan for the first half of the year, under international accounting standards. The company's loss widened to 1.72 billion yuan last year, from 1.59 billion yuan in 2005, as the company struggled in a display market that has not fully recovered from its slump.

Share of BOE Technology closed at 7.85 yuan yesterday, up 4.95 per cent. It has increased more than 140 per cent from a year earlier compared with an almost 250 per cent rise in the Shenzhen A-share index.