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I-Cable Raises $486 Mln, Second Asian Internet IPO
Hong Kong's only Cable Television Network trades 11/24/99.
Should be interesting to follow this one!
Hong Kong's only cable television network, which will soon operate the city's second broadband Internet service, sold 360 million shares at HK$10.49 each, the top of a range given to investors, said Merrill Lynch & Co., which directed the global sale.
International money managers paid $27 each, also the top of the range, for 18 million American depositary shares -- each representing 20 underlying i-cable shares -- that will be traded on the Nasdaq stock market. Investors applied for more than 12 times the shares available, bankers involved in the sale said.
I-Cable says it has more than 430,000 pay-TV subscribers, about 26 percent of the total homes in Hong Kong with access to cable, and about 70,000 Internet customers. Its broadband Internet service, originally scheduled to start at the end of this year, will start in early 2000, which would allow subscribers to connect to the Internet more than 100 times faster than through dial-up modems.
Wharf will retain about 80 percent of i-Cable after it sells 18.4 percent of its issued capital, giving the company an enterprise value -- the sum of its debt and equity -- of about $2.5 billion. Wharf's shares fell 15 HK cents today to 20.30 after rising more than 5 percent during the previous two days.
Merrill Lynch was the global arranger of the sale. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., ABN Amro Holding NV, CLSA Global Emerging Markets, HSBC Holdings Plc, BNP Prime Peregrine Ltd., SG Securities (HK) Ltd. and Bank of China helped sell the shares.
The new securities begin trading Nov. 24.
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