Sierra Trading Increases Shareholding in TCL to 39.5% Following Rights Issue Offer
The Directors of Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) have fixed Friday, April 17, 2015 as the record date for shareholders entitled to receive the Annual Report for TCL for the year ended December 31, 2014. TCL has advised that on March 31, 2015 at 4:00 p.m. it closed its offer for the pro-rata Rights Issue of 124,882,568 new shares, which was opened exclusively on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange. Shareholders are hereby advised of the following results for the Rights Issue: i. 118 shareholders accepted the provisional allotment in whole; ii. 9 shareholders accepted the provisional allotment in part; and iii. 6,354 shareholders allowed entitlement to the allotment to lapse. The number of shares subscribed by eligible shareholders during the period for exercising the pre-emptive rights in the Rights Issue was 51,817,920. Pursuant to the Subscription Agreement dated February 9, 2015 between Sierra Trading and TCL, the main terms of which were published from February 10, 2015, Sierra Trading, as the backstop shareholder, purchased 73,064,648 excess shares in the Rights Issue, representing the remaining shares that had not been subscribed and fully paid up by eligible shareholders upon the expiry of the period for exercising pre-emptive rights. Accordingly, the Rights Issue was fully subscribed.
The participation of Sierra Trading in the Rights Issue, through the exercise of its pre-emptive rights, as well as the purchase of the said excess shares under the Subscription Agreement, will result in Sierra Trading increasing its shareholdings in TCL from 20% to 39.5%. The total amount subscribed by Sierra Trading in the Rights Issue was US$44,852,400.98 worth of new shares. The total amount of capital raised in the Rights Issue was US$57,131,952.55. A condition precedent to the effectiveness of the terms and conditions of the Debt Restructuring agreements between TCL and its Creditors was for TCL to raise equity capital of at least US$50 million. Accordingly, this condition precedent has been met.