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Thai Oil Plc (TOP), one of Thailand’s leading refineries and diversified its investments into other related businesses, is set to see as many as 192 million new shares of the firm starting to trade on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) today after the successful offering that helped raise funds that TOP will use for expanding its business operations.
Wirat Uanarumit, Chief Executive Officer and President of TOP revealed that the company has had successfully offered and saw subscription of new shares by offering 192,307,693 shares that helped raise 11.50 billion Baht. The shares were oversubscribed by more than 22.65 million shares.
These shares are set to start trading today.
TOP said that the proceeds of the fund raising, especially during the tough current market conditions, would be used for paying down loans to its parent company, expand business operations and use as working capital for the various businesses that it has under its umbrella.
TOP said that it plans to use the proceeds from this capital increase to repay the remaining bridging loans to PTT Plc (PTT) and financial institutions that it had taken for the investment in the olefin business by acquiring shares of PT Chandra Asri Petrochemical Tbk in Indonesia. TOP has used approximately 10.71 billion Baht.
The remaining funds would be used as working capital for business operation or business expansion to support continuous growth in the future.
As for investment plans in the 2nd half of this year, Thai Oil wants to build on a strong foundation with an investment budget of about US$ 980 million. Most of it is invested in a Clean Fuel Project (CFP) of about US$ 600 million and in the CAP of about US$ 270 million.
To expand CAP’s olefins business, which will make a final investment decision by the end of the year.
The offering will strengthen the capital structure. To support TOP’s business expansion strategy to be flexible in both existing projects and new projects that will take place in the future.
In addition, there is a project to expand the electricity and steam capacity of TOP SPP Company Limited (TOP SPP) that would cost approximately US$ 46 million. And other projects that are in progress, such as improving the efficiency of the production unit and investment in logistics and utilities at total around US$ 70 million.
Interim Dividend
After the capital raising the number of outstanding shares of TOP would be 2.23 billion shares, a rise of 192.3 million shares from the previous number of shares outstanding. TOP said that after this process is completed and the shares are traded, the company will consider dishing out interim dividends as per its past practices.
TOP during Q2 2022 reported a net profit of 25.33 billion Baht bringing the 6-months of 2022 net profits to stand at 32.51 billion Baht against 5.48 billion Baht during the same period of 2021. Earnings per shares for the 6-months of 2022 stood at 15.94 Baht per share (pre new shares being added to the base calculation) against 2.69 Baht seen during the same period of 2021.
Thai Oil said that it aims to be a leader in sustainable energy and chemicals. Under the vision of Empowering Human Life through Sustainable Energy and Chemicals to be in line with the business context and direction of the energy industry that will be changed in the future.
Therefore, TOP sets a long-term target in 2030 with a new net profit proportion from the petroleum refining and distribution business 40%, petrochemical business and high-value products 40%, electricity business 10%, and new S-Curve business 10%, along with continual environmental stewardship and social responsibility.