ASTI Holdings has completed its placement exercise of 128 million new ordinary shares at 2.5 cents per share, raising gross proceeds of $3.2 million.

 

At the same time, the company has announced the resumption of its trading on Jan 22, 9am, after two years of trading suspension.

 

The group says that these two years were used for a &ldquo restructuring exercise including the definitive resolution of regulatory compliance issues by its board and management&rdquo .

 

ASTI says that it has a cash and cash equivalent position of $16.6 million and working capital of $22.3 million. It has zero bank borrowings.

 

It intends to use gross proceeds to fund three areas: business expansion, research and development, and working capital.

 

ASTI says that it is experiencing &ldquo heightened demand&rdquo from customers in the tape and reel segment with the semiconductor sector demonstrating recovery in FY2025. In addition, funds will be allocated to R& D initiatives to improve equipment yield rates for the group&rsquo s product and services.

 

One week ago, Advanced Systems Automation (ASA) made a pre-conditional voluntary offer for all the shares in ASTI Holdings, which will only proceed if certain conditions have been satisfied, such as if the trading of shares of ASTI is resumed.

 

ASA said that a formal offer announcement will only be made if such pre-conditions are met, in which ASA is planning to offer two of its new shares for each offer share, 0.5 cents per share.

 

ASA, whose principal activities are manufacturing electromechanical components and parts for the semiconductor and consumer electronics industries, says that the acquisition of ASTI can lead to synergies that will result in better business prospectus, operational efficiency and increased cost savings.

 

ASA also notes that ASTI&rsquo s board of directors have failed to deliver on their promises when they took over the company almost two years ago.

 

&ldquo Instead of focusing on delivering their promises, the current board of the company relentlessly tried to sue the offeror to collect alleged debts but was eventually forced to withdraw those suits and pay the offeror costs of $12,000, thus wasted money for both the company and the offeror,&rdquo ASA noted in their circular on Jan 14.

 

Those alleged debts came about at a time when ASTI and the ASA were associated with each other and had no corporate benefit to the ASA.