The issuance price exceeds the bottom price by 50%! 000962's private placement is popular.

On March 24th, after the market close, Eastern Tantalum Industry (000962) released the results of its private placement. This issuance features two major highlights: the issuance price is more than 50% above the floor price, rising to 150.85% of the floor price; the subscribers are mainly backed by state-owned assets, and the proportion allocated to internal group entities is close to half, making it representative among recent private placement cases.

The announcement states that the pricing benchmark date for this private placement of shares to specific parties is the first trading day of the issuance period for these shares (i.e., February 27, 2026). The issuance price shall not be less than 80% of the company’s stock average price over the 20 trading days prior to the first trading day of the issuance period (43.64 yuan per share), meaning the issuance price shall not be less than 34.91 yuan per share. The finally determined issuance price for this issuance is 52.66 yuan per share, and the ratio of the issuance price to the issuance floor price is 150.85%.

On March 25th, Eastern Tantalum Industry’s share price closed at 46.44 yuan, up 5.43%.

When Jia Hongkun, Chief Metal Analyst at Guotou Securities, was interviewed by a reporter from Shanghai Securities News, he said the relatively high issuance price may be because institutions recognize the company’s exclusive and scarce tantalum-niobium products, and because metallic tantalum is currently in an upcycle.

He further said that for niobium superconducting cavity materials used in lithography machines, and the “beryllium spheres” in the field of nuclear fusion, Eastern Tantalum Industry supplies both exclusively domestically. At present, the company’s capacitor-grade tantalum powder has the No. 1 share in the domestic market and ranks among the top three in the global market.

Tantalum demand conditions are gradually improving. The top three demand areas for tantalum are tantalum capacitors, high-temperature alloys, and tantalum target materials (used in semiconductor chips). In addition, tantalum is mainly used in chemical corrosion protection, tantalum chemicals, the defense industry, and the superconducting field. Jia Hongkun said that downstream demand such as AI, high-temperature alloys, and semiconductors is seeing strong growth, and the company’s production capacity has long been unable to meet demand. This issuance is also aimed at expanding capacity to meet the above demand.

“Since the beginning of 2026, tantalum mine prices have risen 2.5 times, and this year they may rise to more than 4 times the level at the beginning of the year.” Jia Hongkun said that the year-on-year growth rate of tantalum supply does not exceed 10%, while the growth rate of demand exceeds 20%.

Regarding the issuance targets, except for one individual investor, the remaining seven issuance targets all have backgrounds in state-owned assets.

Among them, China Nonferrous Metals Group is the actual controller of Eastern Tantalum Industry, and China Chengtong Group is Eastern Tantalum Industry’s controlling shareholder. The lock-up period for both parties’ shares is 18 months, and the combined proportion of the number of shares allocated to them is 49.19%. Guoxin Investment Co., Ltd. is controlled by central SOE China Guoxin Holdings Limited. The National Military-Civil Fusion Industry Investment Fund Phase II Co., Ltd. has shareholding backgrounds involving the Ministry of Finance and central SOEs. Taitong Fund Management Co., Ltd. is a member of Zhejiang Innovation Investment Group. China National Machinery Industry Corporation Holding Co., Ltd. is a company under China National Machinery Industry Group. China Post Wealth Management Co., Ltd. is controlled by Postal Savings Bank. The lock-up period for the shares allocated to the above five issuance targets is 6 months.

Eastern Tantalum Industry disclosed that the fund-raising investment projects of this offering—the hydrometallurgical project, the pyrometallurgical smelting project, and the high-end products project—are capacity expansions of existing products based on the company’s existing principal businesses, combined with future market development needs.

The total amount of funds raised in this issuance is 1.19 billion yuan. After the projects are completed and put into operation, the company’s hydrometallurgical project will add external sales of 150 tons per year of high-purity niobium pentoxide, 30 tons per year of high-purity tantalum pentoxide, and 209.5 tons per year of tantalum-niobium compounds; the pyrometallurgical smelting project will add external sales of 860 tons per year of smelted niobium and 80 tons per year of smelted tantalum; the high-end products project will add external sales of 145 tons per year of tantalum-niobium sheet and strip products.

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