Yang Ming Collects USD 200 Mn from Share Offering

Taiwanese shipping company Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. (YM) has completed the rights offering of 500 million new shares at NTD 12 per share, cashing in NTD 6 billion (USD 200 million).

The company began to float new shares in the public sector in September 2017. Besides the original shareholders, it was open to ordinary investors, including insurance institutions, and container stevedoring and transport companies.

Following the conclusion of the offering, the shareholding ratio of government shareholders of Yang Ming, including Ministry of Transportation and Communications, National Development Fund,  Executive Yuan and Taiwan International Ports Corporation will reach 38.23 percent, the company said.

Yang Ming further disclosed that the private placement of capital increase which has been passed in 2016 shareholders’ meeting is also ongoing steadily and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

“The improvement of business management and warming-up of the market have boosted investors’ confidence,” Yang Ming said.

“With the support from shareholders and the improved financial structure after the rights offering, the company vows to continue the strategy of opening new sources of revenue and reducing expenditures. It will work out various plans to make the performance of its fleet more effective and expand its service network throughout the world.”

The closure of the offerings comes on the heels of Yang Ming’s financial recovery.

The company returned to the back in the third quarter of the year booking a profit of TWD 1.26 billion (USD 42 million), against losses recorded in the same period of 2016.

Yang Ming ascribed the improvement of its financial status to “a combination of strategic actions and initiatives designed to control operating costs and the concerted efforts of its team members worldwide”.

The company posted net losses of TWD 901 million and TWD 445 million in the first and second quarter of 2017, respectively.