Keppel Infrastructure Trust (KIT) will raise $450 million through a placement and a non-renounceable underwritten preferential offering of new units, its manager announced in a regulatory filing yesterday.

Proceeds will be used to partially pay back a loan facility taken for the A$770 million (S$737 million) acquisition of Ixom HoldCo, a water treatment chemicals distributor, said the manager.

KIT unitholders approved the equity-raising exercise at an extraordinary general meeting held on Feb 12.

Keppel Infrastructure Holdings (KIH), which has a direct interest in approximately 18.2 per cent of KIT units, said it would subscribe to the number of new units that will allow it to maintain its current unitholding.

The issue prices of the placement and preference offer units have yet to be determined, but will not exceed a 10 per cent discount to the weighted average price of all trades done on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on March 12 and March 13, up until KIT called for a trading halt at 3.03pm on Wednesday.

KIT last traded at $0.485 before the halt. In-principle approval for the listing and quotation of the placement and preferential offer units has been obtained from SGX.

Credit Suisse (Singapore), DBS Bank, HSBC (Singapore) and UOB have been appointed as joint lead managers, bookrunners and underwriters.