SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) – Ezion Holdings is divesting two towing tugs along with its entire stake in its wholly-owned subsidiary Teras Sunrise for a total of US$83.7 million (S$113.4 million) to ZhongXie Industrial, a marine logistic services provider based in Hong Kong.
According to an exchange filing late on Tuesday night (July 13), the offshore and marine player signed a share purchase agreement to sell Teras Sunrise for US$80.2 million. This is expected to result in a US$13.1 million gain on disposal.
Ezion also inked two memorandums of agreement to dispose of towing tugs, Teras Darius and Teras Eden, for a cash consideration of about US$1.7 million each, to result in an estimated collective loss on disposal of US$117,500 for the group.
The entire consideration received from the sale of its two tug vessels will be used to repay Ezion’s secured bank loans, while most of Teras Sunrise’s sale consideration will be used for the partial repayment of the subsidiary’s debt to DBS Bank.
Ezion said the disposal of its subsidiary and the vessels is in line with its ongoing restructuring, and will allow the group to stop incurring further operating costs and liabilities.
The partial repayment of its secured loans will also reduce the group’s outstanding liabilities, it added.
On a pro forma basis, the disposals would have lowered Ezion’s net liabilities per share as at end-2020 to 36.46 US cents from 36.8 cents, assuming that the transactions took effect on Dec 31 last year and resulted in proceeds of US$83.7 million.
Basic earnings per share and diluted earnings per share for the year ended Dec 31 would have narrowed to a loss per share of 13.1 US cents from 13.51 US cents had the disposals been effected on Jan 1 last year.
Trading in Ezion shares has been voluntarily suspended since March 2019.