On August 31, 2018, a total of US$110 million of offshore dollar bonds was successfully issued by the Tianjin Lingang Investment Holdings Co., Ltd. ("Linang Holdings"), and completed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The issuance is a senior unsecured bond with a proposed issuance of US$100 million, and an actual subscription of US$110 million with the coupon rate of 6.75%, which is oversubscribed by 10%. Central Wealth Securities Investment Limited serves as the delivery agent of this bond, and serves as the joint global coordinators with other institutions - DBS Bank, Wing Lung Bank and Dong Hing Securities (Hong Kong).
As a state-owned sole proprietorship company under the Management Committee of Tianjin Port Bonded Area, Lingang Holdings undertakes the key mission of investing in state-owned assets in Tianjin. With the asset scale of more than 90 billion yuan, and the stable development of its five main sectors，which areConstruction and Development, Park Operation, Public Utilities, Logistics, Commerce and Financial Services. Lingang Holdings obtained the AA+ subject rating issued by China Chengxin International Rating Company，together with the support from many financial institutions in China .Subject to the "de-leverage" macro policy, Sino-US trade war and other factors, domestic enterprises are generally struggling in financing under the current situation. In particular, due to fact that the recent US dollar against the RMB continues to be strong，the issuance of offshore dollar bonds becomes more and more difficult. However, under this kind of extremely severe situation the Lingang Holdings’ daring to issue offshore dollar bonds was due to Tianjin Port Free Trade Zone’s solid industrial foundation and strong government financial support,the Tianjin Port Bonded Area Management Committee’s full support and the company's management’s enterprising transformational thinking and effective reform measures.
The underwriting team and investors of this offshore dollar bond are composed of institutions with long-term cooperative relationships and other new team members engaged this year, indicating that Linang Holdings is higly recognized by the investors from the overseas bond market. Combined with the recent negative news for thelocal state-owned enterprises in Tianjin, the successful issuance of offshore dollar bonds is not only important for Lingang Holdings to stabilize overseas financing channels, but also it may become a key turning point to the local state-owned enterprises in Tianjin.