Wednesday 08 May 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (May 29): Loss-making logistic firm Hubline Bhd — which in February announced it was exiting the container shipping business — has proposed a rights issue and a private placement that are expected to raise about RM93.99 million.

Its filing with Bursa Malaysia this evening showed the rights issue may raise about RM64.82 million, while the remainder RM29.17 will be raised via the private placement.

Hubline said the gross proceed of RM93.99 million was based on the assumption of 1 sen per share for both the rights issue and private placement.

Hubline said 51% or RM48 million of the proceeds raised will be used to repay debt, while 46% or RM43.65 million will be used as working capital; the remaining 3% or RM2.34 million will be channelled to corporate exercise expenses.

On the completion of the fund raising exercises, group total borrowings are expected to drop 21.3% to RM176.75 million, from RM224.7 million currently, it said.

On the rights issue, Hubline said it plans to issue 6.842 billion shares on the basis of two rights share for each existing share (2-for-1), together with 1.62 billion warrants on the basis of one warrant for every four rights shares (1-for-4).

Prior to the rights issue, Hubline plans to reduce the par value of its shares by cancelling 19 sen from the current 20 sen.

“The proposed par value reduction will give rise to a credit of approximately RM618.4 million, which will be utilised to offset accumulated losses. The remaining balance, if any, shall be credited to the capital reserves of the company,” Hublin said in the filing.

As at March 31, 2015, Hubline’s accumulated losses stood at RM576.61 million.

Subsequent to the rights issue, Hubline will offer up to 2.917 billion shares — equivalent to 30% of its enlarged issued and fully paid-up capital — for the proposed private placement to selected investors.

Hubline said it will fix the issue price at a discount of not more than 10% of its five-day volume weighted average price, or not lower than 1 sen per share.

The group expects to complete the corporate exercises by the first half of 2016.

To recap, Hubline had on Feb 18, announced its intention to exit the container shipping business by discontinuing its container shipping operations that were being carried out by its wholly-owned unit, Hub Shipping Sdn Bhd, and various other subsidiaries.

To-date, Hubline (fundamental: 0.2; valuation: 0.9) said it has incurred about RM353.72 million in exit cost, including impairments and losses that were booked in its latest results for the second quarter ended March 31, 2015 (2QFY15).

In a separate filing today, Hubline said its net loss in 2QFY15 has widened to RM369.33 million, from a net profit of RM2.01 million in 2QFY14, on a 51% plunge in revenue to RM44.996 million, from RM91.78 million previously.

For the cumulative six months ended March 31, 2015 (6MFY15), Hubline’s net loss expanded to RM375.19 million, from a net profit of RM5 million 6MFY14, on a 41% slump in revenue to RM108.87 million, from RM184.45 million previously.

Going forward, Hubline said its decision to exit the loss-making shipping division is expected to benefit the group in the medium to long term.

“With the winding down of the container shipping division, the anticipated costs to the income statement will result in the group incurring losses for FY15,” Hubline added.

The stock has fallen 63.64% from 5.5 sen on Sept 15, 2014, to close at 2 sen today, shrinking its market capitalisation to RM64.8 million.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations)

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