Hengtong Optic-Electric has unveiled a private placement plan for A-shares, seeking to raise up to RMB 6.636 billion. The proceeds will fund projects including next-generation optical fiber R&D and production, a high-end optical new materials plant in Inner Mongolia, and an AI advanced optical interconnect project.
The placement will target no more than 35 selected investors, with the issue price set at no less than 80% of the average trading price of the company's shares over the 20 trading days before the pricing benchmark date. Of the total, about RMB 3.148 billion will go to the optical communications business and roughly RMB 1.498 billion to the energy interconnection business.
Optical communications accounts for the bulk of the fundraising. The next-generation optical fiber project will receive RMB 758 million to build lines for specialty fibers such as multicore, ultra-low-loss multicore, polarization-maintaining, hollow-core and multimode fiber. Once fully ramped up, the lines will have annual capacity of 800,000 core-kilometers of multicore fiber, 100,000 core-kilometers of hollow-core fiber and 2.5 million core-kilometers of multimode fiber.
The Inner Mongolia high-end optical new materials project will receive RMB 862 million and, at full capacity, will produce 800 tonnes of optical fiber preforms, 1,200 tonnes of high-end optical quartz materials and 6 million core-kilometers of optical fiber a year. On the AI optical interconnect side, the CPO advanced packaging R&D project and the Hengtong Data Intelligent Connectivity project will receive RMB 196 million and RMB 281 million, respectively, while the AI advanced optical interconnect project will receive RMB 1.051 billion to add about 63 million units of FAU capacity a year.
Within energy interconnection, the Hengtong (Jieyang) marine energy interconnection and intelligent O&M project will receive RMB 644 million and, once completed, will be able to produce 300 kilometers of submarine cables, 150 kilometers of submarine flexible pipes and about 200 sets of accessories a year. The 10,000-tonne-class deep-sea laying vessel project will receive RMB 469 million to build one vessel with a cable-carrying capacity of about 17,000 tonnes. The Hengtong intelligent manufacturing industrial base project will receive RMB 385 million to add 2,000 kilometers a year of high-voltage cable capacity.
The company said the placement is aimed at shoring up its advantages across the optical communications supply chain, strengthening its R&D and commercialization of optical interconnect for intelligent computing, and improving the regional footprint and system delivery capabilities of its energy interconnection business. The deal still requires approval from the company's shareholders, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the China Securities Regulatory Commission before it can proceed.