By Chris Nicholls
SYDNEY: Teac completed its long-awaited Australian Securities Exchange listing today, promising retailers greater transparency and stability.
The listing puts Teac under the TTA Holdings Limited banner, following the company’s name change from Austral Waste Group Limited, and follows a successful capital raising of $600,000, with three million new shares issued at 20 cents each.
The market capitalisation on listing was $27.5 million.
The listing was originally scheduled to occur late last month, but Teac Australia executive director, James Phoon, said divesting various associated companies from the business took longer than expected.
Phoon said the listing would send a message of greater stability and transparency at Teac to retailers.
“We have more transparent processes, now that we are listed and we have a stricter regime of reporting and at the same time, it actually uplifts the brand, so some of this we want to build on and just continue from here,” said Phoon.
Phoon said the transition to listing was “quite smooth”, other than the legal documentation required by the ASX, but had taken up a lot of management time.
“The listing has actually been taking [up] a fair bit of management time, so we just want to put that aside and concentrate on getting up to speed. In the last one and a half years, we had some re-organisation in the company and we have rationalised some of the costs. We have also built up our relationship with the retailers, and are actually doing quite well with retailers right now.
Phoon said Teac was “quite well spread” across the various retail chains at this time and wanted to focus on continuing to “keep up the good work that we have done, and at the same time to also look to continue to establish the brand [to make it into] a stronger brand”.
Phoon also revealed new products would arrive later this year, with a soundbar home theatre system, iPod-compatible high-end hi-fi systems on the way, among others Phoon did not reveal. While he did not reveal a time for the iPod hi-fi systems, he said the new soundbar would arrive by August.
TTA Holdings Limited is a subsidiary of Singapore-listed TT International Limited (TTI), who holds the South East Asian and Pacific rights to the Teac brand.
TTI acquired 100 per cent of the business of Teac Australia in 2006, restoring profitability following a major restructuring and repositioning of the company.
In December 2007, Austral Waste Group, formerly a waste management company, purchased the company for $24 million, financed through a one-off issue of 120 million shares. TTI purchased 87 per cent of those shares, effectively retaining control of the company under a new name.
Upon listing, TT International Limited held 87.2 per cent of the listed shares, but would look to divest some of that shareholding, Phoon said, in an attempt to inject greater liquidity into the market.
Note: This story originally implied Teac re-listed on the ASX after being de-listed. Teac as a corporate name was never listed on the ASX. The publication apologises for any inconvenience caused.