ASL Marine soars up to 9.3% on share placement; Yangzijiang Shipbuilding falls as much as 3.7% on port fees

Shares of ASL Marine surged as much as 9.3 per cent on Tuesday (Oct 14), while those of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding tumbled up to 3.7 per cent as investors took contrasting views of their fortunes.

ASL Marine last Fridayannounce d that its share placement to raise S$7 million was fully taken up, with 41.1 million shares issued at S$0.1703 each. Institutional investors included ICAP-SAC, Lion Global Investors Limited, ICH Capital, Gingko-AGT Global Growth Fund and Azure Capital.

The proceeds will be used to fund capital expenditures, supporting ASL’s business expansion plans. Its shares reached a high of S$0.235 as at 9.35 am, before paring some gains to be 4.7 per cent up at S$0.225 at the midday break.

In contrast, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding shares dropped as low as S$3.16, but recovered to S$3.23 at the midday break to be 1.5 per cent down.

Investors were likely spooked by the escalating trade spat between China and the US. Starting from Tuesday, Chinese-built ships will have to pay a special fee to dock at US ports.

Beijing responded in kind, with fees imposed on US-owned ships docking in China – unless they were built by Chinese shipyards.

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Yangzijiang builds its ships entirely in China, while ASL’s shipbuilding facilities are spread across Singapore, Indonesia and China.

About two-thirds of ASL’s shipbuilding and ship repair capacity are located in the Indonesian city of Batam, likely giving investors greater confidence that it will be able to swallow the US fees compared to Yangzijiang.

Yangzijiang in September also announced that three of its subsidiaries had cancelled contracts valued at about US$180 million with an unnamed party. Still, it secured additional shipbuilding contracts for eight vessels with an aggregate contract value of US$440 million.