Amyris to borrow up to USD60 million in stock deal

Amyris Inc. (NASDAQ: AMRS) will borrow up to USD60 million in a private sale of convertible notes.
Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, one of Amyris’ biggest shareholders through its subsidiary Maxwell (Mauritius) Pte., agreed to provide USD35 million in the deal’s first tranche, and up to USD25 million later on. Temasek owns about 14% of Amyris’ shares.
The first tranche must be approved by shareholders at a special September 2013 meeting. Following that, if certain conditions are met, the second tranche of debt will be issued at any time within two years. Those conditions include production quotas from an Amyris factory in Brazil.
Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory’s Nam-Hai Chua is on Amyris’ board of directors.
Amyris has a technology license and research deal with French oil giant Total SA (NYSE: TOT)., which agreed to provide USD7.6 million in the first tranche and USD5.4 million in the second.
Led by CEO John Melo, Amyris seeks to make renewable replacements for petroleum products. It makes diesel and jet fuel, as well as ingredients for cosmetics, industrial lubricants, fragrances, polymers and other products.
Amyris is based in Emeryville, Calif. In the most recent quarter reported, ended March 2013, it lost USD32.6 million on revenues of USD7.9 million. At that time it had accumulated a deficit of USD618.9 million.
(August 8, 2013)