Issue price for Taiwan High Speed Rail set at NT$15.13

Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (????, THSR) has settled on an issue price for its Oct. 27 main board listing of NT$15.13 (US$0.48), underwriter Fubon Security said on Thursday.

The price was determined after the underwriter held an auction for the 16 million common shares to be issued in the listing.

The final issuance price was much higher than the NT$11.50 per share tentatively set in a prospectus filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Oct. 3.

The auction ran from Oct. 6 to Oct. 11 and had a floor price of NT$11.64, Fubon Securities said.

THSR, the only high speed railway operator in Taiwan, said in the prospectus that if the issue price was higher than NT$11.50, the company would have higher working capital, a positive sign for future operations.

Fubon Securities said the high speed rail operator has enjoyed stable growth in passenger volume in recent years.

Fubon Securities said THSR posted NT$20.05 billion in sales and NT$0.4 in earnings per share for the first half of this year. The underwriter noted that operations for the first half of this year were better than last year, but did not give any comparison figures.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is the largest shareholder in THSR, with a 43.17 percent stake.

Prior to the sale of the new common shares, THSR has paid-in capital of NT$56.05 billion.

Currently, THSR is listed on the local emerging market, which paves the way for a stock for a listing on the local main board or the over- the-counter market in the future.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel