IBS Places New Shares with Lock-Up Period of Two Years, Reflecting the Confidence of Investors, Places Up to 1,280,000,000 New Shares, the Net Procee
Date：Mon Nov,2016
(Hong Kong, 28 November 2016) ― International Business Settlement Holdings Limited (“IBS” and “the Group”) (stock code: 00147.HK) announces that the Group entered into the Placing Agreement with the placing agent Guoyuan Capital (Hong Kong) Limited in relation to the Share Placing on 24 November 2016 after trading hours. Pursuant to the Placing Agreement, the Group has agreed to place up to 1,280,000,000 new shares, representing approximately 6.7% of the issued share capital and approximately 6.3% of the enlarged issued share capital. The placing price is $1.25 per share, a discount of approximately 18.83% to the closing price of HK$1.54 per share as at the date of the Placing Agreement. The lock-up period for the shares is 24 months,reflecting investors’ confidence to the future development of the Group.
The net proceeds from the Share Placing are approximately HK$1.6 billion and intended to be applied mainly towards the Group’s business development of the platform for the next generation settlement network. The Company intends to apply approximately 70% of net proceeds on the hardware and software of the settlement platform, and approximately 20% of net proceeds for research and development; and the rest will be applied as general working capital of the Group. The platform will cover Europe, Central Asia, South-Asia, the Middle East and Africa, etc.
Mr. Luo Feng,Executive Director and Chairman of the Group, said, “The Share Placing is in the interests of the Group and the Shareholders as a whole. It will provide the Group with an opportunity to expand its shareholders and capital base while raising capital to provide strong support for the Group's new business development. In view of the rapid development of the global financial technology industry, the Group will make full use of the proceeds raised from this placing to capitalize on its own advantages and competitiveness and seize the opportunity to further expand our next generation clearing and settlement network globally, generating an ideal return for our shareholder.”
International Business Settlement Holdings Limited (stock code: 00147.HK) is actively developing its new business of arranging the next generation settlement network.The Company intends to based on its distributed network, block chain and other technologies, deploy the next generation worldwide settlement and clearing network. It will provide a fast, highly efficient and low cost financial expressway between different countries by connecting their central banks’ real-time settlement and clearing systems. Based on its unique block chain regional settlement circle technology, the Group will construct a multi-currency, internationalized and distributed global settlement platform. This platform is aimed at realizing point-to-point, “7X24” (i.e. 24hours a day, 7 days a week), multi-currency and real-time fund settlement and clearing for cross border trading businesses and individuals around the world.
