Company Briefs: Hyflux

Hyflux

Embattled water firm Hyflux and three of its subsidiaries applied to the court on Thursday for a further two-month extension of their debt moratorium, until November.

The applications for this extension will be heard at a court hearing on Sept 30, when its previous extension will expire, Hyflux said in an exchange filing late on Thursday night.

Last month, the firm rebutted an assertion by potential white knight Utico that they had struck a rescue deal. In a statement on Aug 28, Hyflux clarified that a definitive agreement had not been entered into with Utico, pending resolution on "certain final outstanding issues" in the draft definitive agreements.


OCBC

OCBC has become the first Singapore bank to join JPMorgan's live blockchain service - known as the interbank information network (IIN), JPMorgan said yesterday.

Asia-Pacific banks that have signed up to the network now total 134, making up nearly 40 per cent of the 343 banks that have signed up since last year. The 80 Japanese banks that have signed up also form the largest bloc globally.

IIN was launched as a pilot in 2017, and aims to cut the friction involved in the global payments process. It runs on a permissioned blockchain developed by JPMorgan called Quorum.


Manulife US Reit

Manulife US Reit's private placement and preferential offering netted gross proceeds of about US$142.7 million (S$196.3 million) after both priced in at the top end of their issue price range, its manager said yesterday.

The pure-play US office Reit had planned to raise US$142.1 million from the equity fund raising for its latest acquisition.

The issue price of the private placement, which was more than seven times covered, was 87.6 US cents per unit. It represents a discount of 3.6 per cent to the volume weighted average price (VWAP) of 90.89 US cents for all units traded on Wednesday, the last market day before the placement's underwriting agreement was signed.

The price range previously announced was 84.9 US cents to 87.6 US cents per unit.

The preferential offering's issue price was 86 US cents per unit, representing a discount of 5.4 per cent to the VWAP. Its price range was between 83.3 US cents to 86 US cents per unit.

The new private placement units are expected to be issued on or around Sept 30.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on September 21, 2019, with the headline Company Briefs: Hyflux. Subscribe