Pearls of the orient plump for AIM
Article Date: Jul 10 2007Two profitable Malaysian debutantes have added spice to AIM this fortnight past, among them Plant Offshore, an oil and gas services business. The engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services group will use AIM to strengthen its hand in the market for ‘full’ EPCM contracts where involvement from inception through to operation brings the best margins.
Plant Offshore recently snared its first such deal worth £14.3 million, and says tenders are in place for further contracts worth more than £55 million. Though the bulk of the business is still in Malaysia, Plant Offshore operates in the stronghold of Qatar and also supplies specialist contractors to Nigeria, Thailand, China and Australia. Broker and adviser HB Corporate managed to raise £2 million for the group at float via a placing at 12p, pricing the company at £20 million.
HB Corporate also advised Malaysian e-payments newcomer MobilityOne, which is run by chief executive and significant shareholder Hussian A. Rahman. The company has a proprietary technology enabling consumers to access prepaid mobile phone reloads and electronic ticketing for buses and events via terminals, text messages, cash machines and the internet. In its capacity as broker, HB Corporate helped MobilityOne raise a modest £1.54 million at 12.5p, giving a debut valuation of £11.7 million.
