Offshore Marine Firm POSH Raises $311 Million In Singapore IPO

Image: POSH

By Elzio Barreto and Rujun Shen

HONG KONG/SINGAPORE,April 17 (Reuters) – PACC Offshore Services Holdings (POSH) could raise at least S$388.27 million ($311 million) after pricing its initial public offering near the bottom of the pricing range indicated earlier, the company said on Thursday.

The deal comes as Singapore’s IPO market has struggled in recent years. Most big-ticket listings in Asia opt for Hong Kong where there is more robust demand from Chinese and international investors.

POSH priced the deal at S$1.15 a share against an indicative price range of S$1.13 to S$1.24 a share, it said in its prospectus. The company is selling 337.625 million shares excluding the greenshoe option.

“We priced it on a basis that we felt comfortable in terms of demand of institutional shareholders coming in,” Chief Financial Officer Geoffery Yeo told reporters.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, DBS Bank and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp Ltd are the joint issue managers, bookrunners and underwriters.

POSH, which is part of the empire of Malaysia’s richest man, Robert Kuok, operates 112 vessels and is the largest Asia-based international operator of support vessels for offshore oilfields.

The offshore support vessel division contributed over half of revenue in 2013. Yeo said POSH was focusing on expanding the services, production and maintenance business, rather than exploration, as it was “less prone to volatility”.

International oil companies have been tightening spending on exploration and production after a decade of double-digit growth, hurting oilfield service industry along the way.

Earnings from the offshore accommodation segment, which provides vessels that can give offshore production operations extra lodging, engineering, construction and storage capacity, is expected to double to 50 percent by the end of 2015, POSH said.

“We believe the (offshore accommodation) fleet is ageing and needs replacement, at the same time the market is growing,” said Chief Executive Officer Gerald Seow.

POSH is taking delivery of several accommodation vessels this year and next, including two large accommodation semi-submersibles that could each provide 750 beds for offshore workers.

POSH’s IPO followed that of Pacific Radiance Ltd, an offshore support vessel operator, last November. Pacific Radiance share price closed at S$1.085, up nearly 11 percent from the opening price when the stock started trading. ($1 = 1.2503 Singapore Dollars) (Additional reporting by S. Anuradha of IFR in SINGAPORE; Editing by Miral Fahmy)