Cosco Shipping Development (CSD), the financing arm of Chinese state conglomerate China Cosco Shipping, is keeping its long-awaited CNY 8.6bn ($1.25bn) private issue alive.
According to exchange filings, CSD has been exchanging opinions with China Securities Regulatory Commission lately over the issue of A-shares that will be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
“This issue has yet to receive approval from the regulator. It’s uncertain whether the approval can be obtained,” said CSD, without elaborating.
The company has apparently been slow in pushing forward the fund-raising plan, which was first unveiled in 2016.
Based on an earlier proposal, CSD plans to use CNY 6.8bn from the issue to fund the expansion of its Florens container leasing business and the rest to repay maturing bonds.
Parent Cosco Shipping has committed to acquire half of the issue. This would increase its stakeholding to 40.9% from 39%.
CSD, which leased many of its shipping assets to other Cosco group firms, made net profits of CNY 596m on revenues of 3.21bn in the first quarter of this year.
