JAKARTA (March 7): Indonesian textile materials trader PT Evergreen Invesco Tbk said it plans to sell 50 billion new shares in May in an equity rights issue whose proceeds will be used to develop its units and pay back some loans.

In a stock exchange filing on Monday, Evergreen said the rights issue was subject to approval by shareholders and the Financial Services Authority (OJK). It did not say how much it hoped to raise from the rights issue.

The company had planned a rights issue last year too. Evergreen first said in September last year that it was seeking 30 trillion rupiah (US$2.25 billion) from a sale of 150 billion new shares. It then lifted that to 40 trillion rupiah before cutting it in December to 10.3 trillion rupiah.

The company had previously said it would use funds raised from a planned rights issue to acquire a holding company set up by Bumiputera, a troubled century-old life insurer.

Evergreen then scrapped the rights issue plan, an OJK-appointed statutory manager for Bumiputera Didi Achdijat said last year, adding that Bumiputera would issue promissory notes instead.

Evergreen's current biggest shareholder is Natural Crystal Holding Inc, which owns 53.26% of the firm. First Venture Ltd holds a further 6.22% stake, with the remainder publicly traded.

(US$1 = 13,345.0000 rupiah)