Placing

IDOX and Prejudicial Placings

One of the things that private investors hate is placings made by companies to raise money in which they cannot participate. In other words, the issuance of shares that dilutes your interest in the company when it is not a rights issue and there is no "open offer" alongside. Sometimes those placings are done at a price which is a considerable discount to the open market share price, thus enabling institutional investors to pick up shares at a big discount to ...

Stanley Gibbons Fund Raising

Stanley Gibbons (SGI) issued a profit warning in late February indicated likely losses for the year, and immediately said they were considering a number of fund raising alternatives. More...

Glencore Placing Attacked

In a previous blog post I said that Glencore's plans to cut its debt and strengthen its balance sheet by disposals and a new share issue were "just what the doctor ordered". But it turns out that the detail of the prescription was not to everyone's liking. Institutional fund managers have rightly deplored the fact that the equity issue was a "placing", i.e. not a rights issue that is subject to the normal pre-emption rules. In other words, existing shareholders were ...

Alkane Placing – What a Wheeze!

Today (17/7/2014) Alkane Energy announced a placing to raise £8m to fund the acquisition of three power response companies. The placing was at 36p, when the closing price the previous day was 39.5p indicating a discount of 9%. But as with all such placings, the news had got around the market beforehand, so it's more like a 15% discount to the share price before the news spread. So what you may ask? It's just another placing that prejudices private shareholders who were ...