OM Holdings targets HK$1.5b from listing
Australia-listed OM Holdings, which processes and sells specialised metal materials, is seeking to raise as much as HK$1.5 billion from a secondary listing in Hong Kong in the coming three months, to strengthen its capital reserve for further expansion, market sources said.
OM Holdings has hired mainland investment bank Citic Securities as financial adviser and sponsor for the proposed offering.
'The company has already submitted an application to the Hong Kong stock exchange. The transaction will likely come to the market in either June or July, depending on the market environment at the time,' said a source.
OM Holdings was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in March 1998. It has metal mines in Australia and owns processing plants on the mainland.
'A secondary listing could grant the company a more diversified shareholder portfolio with a larger geographical coverage, and attract some Asian funds that are not active in Australia's stock market,' the source said.
OM Holdings is mainly engaged in sourcing and distributing manganese ore products and in processing ores into ferro-manganese intermediate products.
The proceeds will mainly be used to fund mining exploration in Australia, while a portion will be spent on the future development of its mainland processing plants, another source said.
OM Holdings expects to generate a net profit of at least A$80 million for the six months ending June 30.
The previous foreign company to make a secondary listing in Hong Kong was Australia-listed gold miner Sino Gold, which raise HK$890 million in March last year.
The first four months of the year have been slow for Hong Kong's stock exchange, with only six initial public offerings executed.
The total amount of funds raised was US$4.2 billion, a contraction of 60 per cent compared with US$10.3 billion raised during the same period of 2007.
Eight planned initial public offerings were called off in January, and another three were cancelled in March, as a result of the unfavourable market conditions.
E-Land Fashion China, a spin-off of Korean's largest fashion retailer, scrapped a HK$2.88 billion initial public offering in Hong Kong last week because of a cool response from investors.
Asia share offer volumes totalled US$17.3 billion from 140 deals in the first five months to May 12, the lowest number of deals since the same period in 1999, according Thomson Reuters.
