This morning Countrywide said it has fallen short of its target in issuing new shares.
It announced to the stock market that the company had received about 72% of acceptances under its open offer. It had planned to raise £28.6m by issuing new ordinary shares, as part of its £140m emergency fund raise.
Its statement said: “On 2 August 2018, the Company announced details of a proposed Firm Placing and Placing and Open Offer (the “Issue”) to raise gross proceeds of £140 million, approximately £111.4 million by way of a Firm Placing of 1,114,419,568 Firm Placing Shares and approximately £28.6 million by way of a Placing and Open Offer of 285,580,431 Open Offer Shares, in each case at an Issue Price of 10 pence per New Ordinary Share.
“The Open Offer closed for acceptances at 11:00 a.m. on 17 August 2018. The Company has received valid acceptances in respect of 206,578,406 Open Offer Shares under the Open Offer.
“This represents approximately 72.34% of the Open Offer Shares offered pursuant to the Open Offer.
“Accordingly, the remaining 79,002,025 Open Offer Shares, representing approximately 27.66% of the Open Offer Shares will be allocated to the Conditional Placees with whom the Open Offer Shares had been conditionally placed under the Placing.
“The Issue remains conditional on, among other things, the approval by the Company’s shareholders at the General Meeting, which will take place at 10:30 a.m. on 28 August 2018.
“The Company will announce the results of the General Meeting as soon as practicable after the meeting concludes. It is expected that Admission will become effective, and that dealings in the New Ordinary Shares on the London Stock Exchange’s main market for listed securities will commence, at 8.00 a.m. on 30 August 2018.”
Meanwhile, shares in Countrywide yesterday had a bumpy day yesterday – despite the business canning plans to pay out some £20m to its top three executives.
At one point they fell almost 7% but picked up to finish the day at about 14.5p, just 1% down.
The pay plan was dependent on the firm’s share price performance over the next three years – but there was an outcry from investors and Countrywide’s own staff.
A week today, Countrywide shareholders are due to vote on the rescue plan to try and resolve its £200m-plus debt mountain.
The money it is looking to raise is considerably more than its market capitalisation, which yesterday afternoon stood at some £76m, according to the London Stock Exchange.
Comments (7)
GPL
More like an opportunity for the talented staff and brands to unshackle themselves from the CWD brand and the set of BODS and get on and do what they do best .Let’s face it you wouldn’t give any of the BODS a job let alone answer to them .
Even now after an emergency funding they will still carrying a substantial debt. long into the future Who wants to chance their professional careers work for a couple of vulture funds?It’s only a sticking plaster.
Why burn yourselves out earning fees purely to pay for the board’s past and continuing mistakes
Maybe have a quiet word with the lads at BTW Shiels in Belfast who certainly now how to game it .Sold themselves twice to CWD for handsome sums to CWD in it’s various guises .Each time ultimately paid out of the pockets of the poor private investor and quietly slipped off to start up the whole merry dance again
I accept I may be sent numerous straightjackets in response to this comment however, here goes…..
I just wonder whether it is an opportunity for the staff that believe in Countrywide to take a share punt when it seems at its lowest – it may be a way to get some future value out of this debacle – accepting of course that share value can go down as well as up and the pear shape could explode.
I took a punt, accepting like an OTM V1 investment, it could be money down the drain. I don’t think CW are dead although if the Clowns continue Clowning then all bets are blown.
And they wanted to reward themselves with £20 million worth of shares !!!
Rumour has it the directors are arranging a drinking session in a beer production establishment to drown their sorrows.
Let’s see how well they organise that !
Existing holders can’t have much confidence if they’re not willing to part with 10p per share. Unlike a rights issue, they won’t receive anything for lapsed entitlements.
This is the second article which quotes a market capitalisation yesterday afternoon of £76m. Where does this figure come from? There are currently about 238m shares in issue. At 14.5p that equates to a market cap of £34.5m.
If the proposed fund raising proceeds they’ll be about 1,638m shares in issue, with the 1,400 new shares admitted to the market on 30 August. It could be argued that the current share price already reflects these new shares and the indicative new market cap will be 237.5m
Whatever, existing ordinary shareholders have been well and truly shafted by the placees, who will receive the lion’s share of the new shares at 10p.
Surely worth a punt?
Yet another horlicks by the BODS they have overanticipated demand by 27% where “conditional placees” are now having to pick up the shortfall.More than likely to lead to a major share dump with consequential drop in SP