(Feb 20): Yinson Holdings Bhd, an energy infrastructure firm, is considering raising about US$1 billion (RM4.79 billion) in a funding round for its floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit before an initial public offering (IPO) of the business, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The company is working with a financial adviser on the fundraising for Yinson Production Offshore Pte Ltd, the people said. Yinson and its adviser plan to officially kick off the pre-IPO funding round as early as next month, while the asset may attract global funds and private equity funds, the people said.

RRJ Capital, which invested US$300 million in Yinson Production’s Angola project, plans to commit another US$320 million in the funding round, according to Richard Ong, the private equity fund’s chief executive officer. Terms of the investment haven’t been finalised, according to him.

The Singapore-based FPSO unit is estimated to report about US$680 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation for the year ended 2023, said the people. Yinson is weighing a US IPO for the FPSO business as soon as 2026, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. 

Deliberations are ongoing, and details of the funding round and the listing plans may still change, the people said. A representative of Yinson Holdings declined to comment.

Yinson Production has contracts with firms including Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras and the Angolan joint venture of energy majors BP plc and Eni SpA. Besides RRJ, Global Infrastructure Partners and Sumitomo Corp have also provided financing to Yinson Production’s projects. 

The company has an order book of about RM100 billion, which includes both firm contracts and options and will last for 20 years, Yinson Holdings CEO Lim Chern Yuan said in an interview in September last year. The group wouldn’t rule out spinning off some of its businesses or selling a stake to bring in strategic investors to help grow the business, he said.

Apart from FPSO, Yinson Holdings is also involved in renewable energy, green technology as well as advisory, investment and asset management via its Farosson unit, according to its website. At the time of writing on Tuesday, Yinson Holdings shares were three sen or 1.2% higher at RM2.53, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM7.72 billion.