It will draw on $124 million from banking division spin-off
Dah Sing Financial Holdings plans to use $124 million of the proceeds from a spin-off of its banking businesses to pay its existing shareholders a special dividend of 80 cents per share.
It will also set aside 15 per cent of the upcoming global offering for its current shareholders who will be able to apply for one share in the new company for every five shares they hold in Dah Sing Financial, according to a company statement.
The company yesterday said 27.3 million shares would be available for this purpose, indicating that the company intended to issue a total of 182 million shares before the planned listing of Dah Sing Banking Group (DSBG) on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
The spin-off plan took the market by surprise when it was first announced in March, particularly since the banking operations already account for about 90 per cent of total operations.
According to the statement the banking operations, including Dah Sing Bank and Mevas Bank, contributed $880 million to the group's net profit of $993 million last year.