On July 21, the Practice Note 17 (PN17) company had proposed to undertake the placement of up to 144.12 million shares representing 10% of its total issued shares to Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera (LTAT) to raise gross proceeds of up to RM50 million.

These funds were to be used as an interim measure to bridge its working capital requirements while it formulates a plan to regularise its financial condition to address its PN17 status.

This comes on the heels of an earlier private placement of 131.02 million new shares (10% of its then share base) which was completed on July 24, that raised RM45.86 million to fund its working capital.

On July 27, Bursa Securities informed Pharmaniaga it was unable to consider the second proposed private placement as a second fund raising exercise on a stand-alone basis. The regulator indicated that it may be included as part of the group’s proposed regularisation plan.

In a separate filing, Pharmaniaga announced it is in the midst of formulating a regularisation plan to address its financial condition.

The group had fallen under the PN17 classification for financially distressed companies in February after posting its largest ever quarterly net loss of RM664.39 million in the fourth quarter ended Dec 31, 2022 (Q4 FY2022) from a net profit of RM85.47 million a year earlier.

In its filing, the group said it had taken a RM552.3 million impairment on unsold Covid-19 vaccines and had also written down the goodwill of its Indonesian manufacturing cash-generating units of RM50.3 million.

Pharmaniaga, a subsidiary of Boustead Holdings Bhd, has various lucrative contracts with the Malaysian government including the provision of Covid-19 vaccines.

At the close of trade yesterday, its shares were down 1.5 sen or 3.61% to 40 sen, valuing the group at RM569.46 million.