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C.R. Sukumar

Hyderabad , Jan. 26

AIMED at improving its net worth in the backdrop of huge accumulated losses, Vera Laboratories Ltd (VLL), the city-based pharmaceutical company, is planning to raise significant funds by way of issue of fresh equity shares to select individuals on a preferential allotment basis.

According to the company sources, its board has already approved a resolution to offer 1.39-crore equity shares of Rs 10 each, amounting to Rs 13.9 crore, in favour of a group of non-resident Indians. To enable the preferential offer, the board has also cleared a proposal for raising the authorised share capital from Rs 41.5 crore to Rs 55 crore.

"The company has already received funds from these NRIs under the category of share application money account and unsecured loans. In view of the huge accumulated losses and also as a part of the debt restructuring proposal submitted to the Industrial Development Bank of India, the company plans to allot further shares to these persons," the sources told Business Line.

Stating that the preferential offer would enable Vera Laboratories improve its net worth, sources said it was decided to hold an extraordinary general meeting of its shareholders on February 6 to seek their consent. The company proposes to complete the share allotment process within a period of three months from then.

Though Vera Laboratories has fixed January 7 as the relevant date for the purpose of determining the issue price of equity shares, the company could not determine the issue price as per the SEBI formula since the shares were not actively traded for long. In view of this, the board has fixed the issue price as Rs 10 per share. The paid-up equity would go up to Rs 54.96 crore from the existing Rs 41.06 crore.

Following the preferential offer, the holding of NRI promoters would go up to 2.01-crore shares from the existing 1.74-crore shares.

Similarly, the holding of NRIs in non-promoters category would increase to 1.41-crore equity shares from the existing 29.62-lakh shares, taking up their holding to 25.8 per cent on the expanded equity base from the current level of 7.21 per cent.

Accordingly, the holdings of resident Indian promoters would get reduced to 4.55 per cent from 6.1 per cent, bodies corporate to 10.69 per cent from 14.31 per cent, financial institutions to 11.83 per cent from 13.98 per cent, while the public holding would shrink to 10.45 per cent from 13.98 per cent.

More Stories on : Preferential Allotments | Pharmaceuticals

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