Evergreen Marine, the flagship unit of Evergreen Line, has raised TWD 3bn ($96.8m) via a new share issue to shore up its balance sheet.
The Taipei-listed container line’s board has approved a proposal to issue 300 million shares at TWD 10.7 per share, according to an exchange filing.
This is lower than Evergreen Marine shares’ closing price at TWD 11.85 on Tuesday.
Evergreen Marine employees will buy 10% of the new shares, while another 10% are being sold in open market transactions. Existing shareholders will take the bulk of the remaining shares.
“The issue is to repay bank loans and improve leverage ratios,” the filing said.
Plagued by rising bunker costs, the company flipped into a net loss of TWD 1.1bn in January-June from a net profit of TWD 3.1bn in the same period of 2017.
Total cash outflows amounted to TWD 2.2bn in the first half of this year.
Cash reserves of the company were at TWD 35.9bn as of end-June, down from TWD 37bn at end-December.
