Trading of Raffles Infrastructure shares has been suspended with effect from July 3, one month after the company received a delisting notice from the exchange for not showing it can exit the watch list.
As required, the company had tried looking for parties willing to make an exit offer for shareholders. However, as of June 30, none of the top 20 shareholders, nor third-party investors, had indicated any interest to do so.
Citing its own finances, Raffles Instructure is not making an offer too. While it held cash of RMB85.1 million as at March 31, it faces impending payables of more than RMB160 million, according to the June 30 statement by Ryan Chiu Tzong Min, the company's deputy CEO and executive director.
Despite the name, the company's main business has been in road construction in China. More recently, it has shifted its business focus to the so-called digital infrastructure business of building electronic platforms and providing maintenance services for SMEs in the Philippines and Hong Kong.
The company has been included in SGX's watch list since June 6 2019 and has received an extension after three years.
However, the application for another extension was rejected on June 1, according to Raffles Instructure in an earlier June 2 announcement.
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The exchange had noted that the company's six-month average market cap has not been able to gain above the minimum $40 million mark as required to exit the watch list.
Instead, it dropped to as low as $1.97 million as May 31, despite moving into a new business, digital infrastructure.
While Raffles Infrastructure had expressed its confidence in the potential of the digital infrastructure business, there was only one remaining contract under negotiation under the key "software as a service” segment.
It hadn't managed to win new contracts in other segments and was only in "early discussions".
Kim Jiwon, head of growth at Raffles Digital Infrastructure, resigned on May 31, citing her intention to "pursue other business opportunities". 27-year-old Kim appointed was to this role last July 15.
Raffles Instructure further projects that its revenue and profit will drop to US$9 million and US$259,000 come FY2026.
As such, the extension application was rejected by SGX, and, the exchange, citing Rule 1315, told the company to delist.
For the most recent 3QFY2023 ended March, the company reported a revenue of nearly RMB6.2 million, up 52% y-o-y. However, it sank into a loss of RMB3.2 million, from earnings of nearly RMB2.9 billion. For 9MFY2023, it recorded earnings of nearly RMB5 million, down 47% y-o-y; revenue was up 58% y-o-y to RMB47 million.
The company's non-executive chairman is Wong Ann Chai, a former DBS banker who was appointed to the board on Jan 2020.
Its largest shareholder is an entity called Magic Micro, holding 20.31%, as of Sept 22. The second largest shareholder is Yuanita Tjia, holding 17.66%, a non-executive, non-independent director.
