SUZHOU, CHINA, China, via eTeligis Inc., 05/08/2014 - - China Commercial Credit, Inc. (NASDAQ: CCCR), a microfinance company whose current major business is providing microcredit loans and loan guarantees to small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), farmers and individuals in Jiangsu Province, today announced the pricing of its secondary offering of 1,750,000 common shares and warrants to purchase an additional 875,000 common shares at a price of $4.00 per share and accompanying warrant.
The Company is offering 1,650,386 of its common shares and the selling stockholders are offering 99,614 common shares. Each common share is being sold together with a warrant, with each warrant being immediately exercisable for one-half of a common share at an exercise price of $5.60 per whole share for a period of three years after the issuance date. All warrants will be issued by the Company. The Company will receive gross proceeds of $6,601,544 from this offering. The Company will not receive any proceeds from the sale of shares by the selling stockholders. The offering is expected to close on or about May 13, 2014, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.
Net proceeds of approximately $5.7 million from this offering will be used primarily for the capitalization of Pride Financial Leasing (Suzhon) Co. Ltd., the company's wholly-owned subsidiary that will offer mid-to long-term leases on industrial machinery and equipment, transportation vehicles, and medical devices to SMEs, hospitals, municipal governments and public transportation entities.
The Company has granted the underwriter a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 262,500 common shares and warrants to purchase 131,250 shares at the public offering price, less the underwriting discount, to cover any over-allotments.
In addition to utilizing the offering proceeds to fund Pride Leasing, the company plans to fund Pride via traditional bank loans initially equal to three to four times the total of Pride's registered capital. At its discretion, however, the company will have the option to expand this leverage up to ten times the total of Pride's registered capital.
Axiom Capital Management Inc. acted as sole book running manager and representative of the underwriters in the offering. ViewTrade Securities Inc. acted as co-manager. Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP acted as counsel to the Company and Reed Smith LLP acted as legal counsel to the underwriters.
As now one of a handful of equipment leasing companies in Jiangsu Province, Pride believes there will be "strong demand" for its leasing services and under terms highly attractive to Pride. According to CCCR's founder, CEO and Chairman, Mr. Huichun Qin, a former vice president at the Wujiang branch of Peoples Bank of China and former deputy director of the Wujiang State Administration of Foreign Exchange, "Many Chinese businesses have begun to recognize the benefit of leasing versus purchasing and understand that leasing will likely minimize significant upfront costs, maximize tax allowances, and effectively boost their productive assets without creating the need to provide any additional guarantee and other collateral typically required for bank loans."
Mr. Qin noted that in China only five percent of companies requiring the use of industrial machinery and equipment utilize financial leasing of these assets, compared to about 20 percent in the European and American markets. Based upon current growth patterns -- and recently announced government infrastructure development plans which should significantly increase demand for leased machinery, equipment and vehicles -- it is expected that the nation's financial leasing industry could grow at a compounded annual growth rate of up to 30 percent, and exceed $1.59 trillion by 2020.
"We are very optimistic about Pride's prospects and pleased to have completed this offering," concluded Mr. Qin. "The company can now embark on its next major growth phase as we expand operations to add leasing to our financial service offerings."
The offering of these securities has been made only by means of a prospectus. A registration statement relating to the shares of common stock and warrants has been declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 7, 2014. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state. Copies of the final prospectus relating to the offering, when available, may be obtained for free by visiting the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website at http://www.sec.gov.
About China Commercial Credit
China Commercial Credit (http://www.chinacommercialcredit.com), founded in 2008, provides business loans and loan guarantee services to more than 280 small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), farmers and individuals in China's Jiangsu Province. Due to recent legislation and banking reform in China, these SMEs, farmers and individuals -- which historically had been excluded from borrowing funds from State-owned and commercial banks -- are now able to borrow money at competitive rates from microfinance lenders. According to 2012 data, SMEs, farmers and individuals account for eight of ten jobs in China and comprise 60 percent of the nation's GDP.
Utilizing proceeds of this offering, the company intends to commence its financial leasing business. It also recently launched a peer-to-peer online lending platform designed to pair SME borrowers with willing lenders.
Investors wishing to receive CCC's corporate communications as they become available may go to http://www.ir-site.com/china-commercial-credit/default.asp and register under Email Alerts.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of United States securities laws. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason after the date of this release to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations. You should review the factors described in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in our registration statement on Form S-1 filed with the SEC on May 7, 2014 and other documents we file from time to time with the SEC. We qualify all of our forward-looking statements by these cautionary statements.
Contact:
Investors
Jimmy Caplan
512-329-9505
jimmy@asia-irpr.com
Media
Rick Eisenberg
212-496-6828
rick@asia-irpr.com
SOURCE: China Commercial Credit, Inc.
Associated Documentation:
Link to submission on http://www.eteligis.com
CCCR_05-08-2014_MEL_ETL.docx
To unsubscribe from any future mailings, please visit: http://www.eteligis.com/MassMailUnsubscribe.aspx
Copyright eTeligis Inc. 2014. All rights reserved.
0 comments:
Post a Comment