KUALA LUMPUR (March 20): Yinson Holdings Bhd has proposed a private placement of 120 million new shares to raise RM283.2 million to expand its renewable energy and green technology business.

In a bourse filing on Wednesday, Yinson said it had fixed the issue price of the placement shares at RM2.36 per share.

At the midday break on Wednesday, Yinson dipped 1.69% or four sen to RM2.48 with 1.19 million shares traded.

It said the issue price of the placement shares represents a discount of approximately 4.9% to the five-day volume weighted average market price of the shares up to and including March 19 (being the last market day immediately before the price fixing date) of RM2.4809.

Yinson said the proceeds will primarily be to facilitate the energy transition and for the expansion of both the renewable energy and green technology business.

The company said it is exploring suitable investment opportunities to expand its renewable energy business such as in wind and solar as well as green technology business, adding that this could entail acquiring companies or embarking on new projects to grow the businesses.

Yinson's last cash call was its RM1.19 billion rights issue.

The rights issue was priced at RM1.41 apiece.

The deal, done after a one-for-one bonus issue, was further sweetened by three free detachable warrants with every seven rights shares subscribed, at the exercise price of RM2.29 apiece.

It was Yinson’s third successful cash call since venturing into the O&G sector. The latest rights issue was over twice the size of its previous one — done more than eight years ago in 2014, which raised RM568.04 million and put the group in a position to deploy four FPSOs then.

Out of the RM1.19 billion rights issue proceeds, Yinson allocated RM770 million or 64.7% to fund its FPSO projects.

Yinson posted its highest quarterly net profit of RM248 million for the third quarter ended Oct 31, 2023 (3QFY2024), an increase of 60% compared with RM155 million a year earlier, underpinned by a higher revenue.

Quarterly revenue grew 62% to RM2.81 billion from RM1.74 billion a year ago.

As at Oct 31, Yinson had RM2.75 billion cash and cash equivalents, up from RM2.06 billion a year earlier.

As of Feb 29, 2024, the major shareholders are Lim Han Weng and family with 24.49%, the Employees Provident Fund with 17.13% and Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Retirement Fund Inc) with 6.29%.