Textured Jersey Lanka, a Hong Kong Sri Lanka joint venture knitted fabric producer has announced it is raising 1.2 billion rupees in an initial public offering by selling 80 million shares at 15 rupees each.

The deal has been given approval by the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) for a listing on its Main Board. The subscription list for the IPO will open on July 7 and applications will be accepted from June 27.

Textured Jersey Lanka is a joint venture between Hong Kong listed Pacific Textile Holdings and Sri Lanka's Brandix, a privately held business. The company, Sri Lanka's largest producer of value-added knitted fabric, which specializes in the manufacture of high quality, circular knitted, dyed stretch fabrics, is a major supplier to apparel manufacturers throughout Asia and retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Victoria's Secret and Intimissimi.

The company is issuing a 12.21% stake or 80,000,000 new ordinary voting shares at a price of Rs. 15/- per share, to raise funds for the expansion of production facilities and to purchase state-of-the-art machinery to increase its production scale and efficiency.

Currently, Textured Jersey Lanka has the capacity to knit, dye and finish 2.5 million metres of fabric per month at its facilities in Avissawella in Sri Lanka. In April this it raised 1.74 billion rupees through a private placement.

The listing is expected to  enable the company to take advantage of potential growth opportunities in both Sri Lanka and the South Asian region, and provide a separate independent platform to raise funds from capital markets to support its future growth aspirations.