Chirkhwa Hydropower IPO Closing From Today For Nepalese Employed Abroad; Deadline Extended for Locals Till Bhadra 25

Chirkhwa Hydropower Limited is closing the issue of its IPO to the Nepalese citizens working abroad from today i.e. 10th Bhadra, 2080, and has extended the IPO issue deadline for project-affected locals of Bhojpur District till the 25th Bhadra. The issue had opened on 28th Shrawan, 2080.

The issued capital of the company is Rs. 40 Crores of which 10% i.e. 400,000 unit shares worth Rs. 4 Crores have been allocated to project-affected locals of Bhojpur District. Meanwhile, 20% of the company's issued capital i.e. 800,000 unit shares will be issued later for the general public. Of this public issue, 10% of the shares totaling 80,000 units shares have been allocated for Nepalese citizens working abroad, the issue of which will close today.

For the project-affected locals, the minimum application quantity to be applied is 10 units while the maximum quantity is 1,00,000 units whereas for the Nepalese citizens working abroad, the minimum application quantity to be applied is 10 units and the maximum quantity is 5000 units.

RBB Merchant Banking is appointed as the issue manager.

According to CDSC, 29,991 applications have been received through Nepalese citizens working abroad for a total of 688,203 units so far.

ICRA Nepal has reaffirmed the issuer rating of [ICRANP-IR] BB- (pronounced ICRA NP issuer rating double B minus) to Chirkhwa Hydropower Limited. Issuers with this rating are considered to have a moderate risk of default regarding the timely servicing of financial obligations.

Chirkhwa Hydropower Limited, incorporated in January 2009, is developing a 4.7 MW Upper Chirkhwa Khola HPP in the Bhojpur district, Province-1 of Nepal. The project is a run-of-the-river (R-o-R) type and is being developed at a 40% probability of exceedance. The project has been planned to be developed at a budgeted project cost of NPR 910 million (NPR ~194 million per MW) to be funded in a D: E ratio of 60:40, with the debt component of NPR 545 million secured with Rastriya Banijya Bank Limited. The project has achieved ~90-95% progress till mid-Jan 2023.