Altech Chemicals Ltd’s (ASX:ATC) (FRA:A3Y) Frankfurt Stock Exchange-listed investee Altech Advanced Materials AG (AAM) has extended the acceptance date for its rights offer to January 10, 2020.
Background
Altech had sold an option to AAM, whereby AAM can acquire up to a 49% interest in Altech’s HPA (high purity alumina) project in Malaysia for US$100 million.
AAM has commenced the process of securing the funds to enable it to exercise its option, which once complete is anticipated to be a catalyst for project financial close.
Stage 1 of the AAM capital raise is a 40:1 rights offer, whereby all exiting AAM shareholders have the right to subscribe to 40 new AAM shares for each share they hold in AAM, at a price of €1.10 per new share.
The decision to extend the acceptance date to January 10, 2020 was taken in response to a number of shareholders who advised AAM that their respective custodian banks had not informed them of the offer until just prior to the original acceptance close date, and that the late advice had not provided sufficient time for these shareholders to make their respective investment decision.
€69.4 million capital increase
AAM will convene a general meeting of its shareholders on January 15 2020, at which it will seek shareholder approval to extend by 3 months to April 16 2020, the date by which AAM has to complete its proposed €69.4 million capital increase.
AAM is confident that it will receive shareholder approval for the revised date.
The additional time will provide AAM a 3-month window after the 2019 Christmas/New Year period to promote Altech’s HPA project and the investment opportunity to institutional investors for private placement, following on from the retail investor focussed rights Issue.
Share purchase plan
Altech had also initiated a share purchase plan (SPP) whereby shareholders can apply for up to 30,000 new Altech shares at 9.75 cents per share.
The company is aiming to raise up to $4 million from the SPP.
The closing date for the SPP has now been extended to January 3, 2020 as the slower mail delivery leading up to the Christmas and New Year period has resulted in some shareholders not receiving their SPP offer and application documents until just prior to the original SPP closing date.