KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 19): Asia Brands Bhd, whose fashion brands include Anakku, Audrey and Mickey Junior, has aborted its plan to undertake a private placement exercise, which would have seen it issuing up to 20% of its enlarged share capital to new investors to raise RM23.27 million.

"Asia Brands will not proceed with the implementation of the private placement as the company had achieved its objective to raise funds from the rights issue for the repayment of the Islamic Medium Term Notes (Tranche 1, Series 3) of RM40 million due on March 18, 2019," it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia today.

The private placement was also proposed to be implemented to facilitate Asia Brands to comply with the public shareholding spread requirement of Bursa Securities in the event its public shareholding spread falls below 25% following the implementation of the rights issue.

However, Asia Brands noted that as the public shareholding spread after the implementation of the rights issue remains above 25%, it has decided not to proceed with the implementation of the private placement.

On July 2 last year, Asia Brands had proposed to undertake a rights issue of up to 116.32 million new shares at an issue price of 35 sen each on the basis of one rights share for every one existing shares of Asia Brands. The rights issue was expected to raise gross proceeds of up to RM40.71 million.

In the same proposal, Asia Brands had planned to undertake the private placement upon completion and assuming full subscription of the proposed rights issue.

Shares of Asia Brands were not traded today. It last closed at 39 sen, with a market capitalisation of RM90.73 million.