Hibiscus raises RM85m more than required

KUALA LUMPUR: Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd has managed to raise more than the required RM150 million through its public offering and placement.

The combined IPO funds represent an excess of RM85 million, or 57 per cent, more than the minimum required to be raised by Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) according to Securities Commission Equity Guidelines.

Hibiscus Petroleum is the first SPAC to go for a listing on the local stock exchange after the Securities Commission (SC) introduced the ruling two years ago.

A SPAC goes for listing with no operations but will use cash raised from the exercise to later make acquisitions.

Investors' confidence in the company is mainly derived from the prior track record of the management team.

Its public portion was oversubscribed by 3.8 times, seeing application for 48 million shares when only 10 million were made available for the public.

Up to 38 million Public Issue Shares available under the Placement Portion will be reallocated from the Placement Portion to the Retail Portion under the clawback provision set out in the Prospectus dated June 30.

In addition, a total of 265 million made available by way of placement to selected investors, have been placed out.

In a statement released yesterday Hibiscus Petroleum's managing director Dr Kenneth Pereira said he is both encouraged and motivated by the success of the IPO exercise.

"We are also pleased with the shareholding pattern of the company that has emerged from the IPO exercise. Apart from establishing a platform that is growth focused, we believe we have also created a foundation to implement the best practices in corporate governance. These were some of the goals that we sought to achieve through the use of a SPAC financial structure and we are extremely pleased that such goals were achieved," he said.

Apart from the 20 per cent equity interest held by the Non-Independent Directors and Management of our Hibiscus Pteroleum, the next largest shareholder holds slightly less than 10 per cent of the equity.