23rd May 2014 09:09
LONDON (Alliance News) - Blur Group PLC Friday said it has conditionally raised USD22 million in a placing and open offer, representing 37% of its enlarged capital, as its losses widened in the full year on increased administrative costs from its efforts to grow its services exchange business.
Earlier this month Blur, which operates a cloud-based platform where buyers can submit briefs for a range of professional and business services called the Global Services Exchange, saw its shares drop as it issued a second revenue warning in as many months and said it was looking for new financing.
Blur Friday said it has conditionally raised USD20.0 million through the issue of 15.9 million shares by way of a placing at 75 pence per share and up to a further USD2.0 million through the issue of up to 1.9 million shares by way of an open offer at the same price.
The placing price represents a discount of 29% to the closing price of 105.45 pence on Thursday. Blur shares were quoted down 19% at 85.00 pence Friday morning.
The company said it will use the proceeds of the placing to accelerate growth through investment in sales, technology and marketing, as well as to strengthen its balance sheet. Within sales, investment will be made in international expansion, with the addition of Asia Pacific and European sales teams.
Blur said it will use the proceeds from the open offer for general working capital purposes.
N+1 Singer is acting as sole broker for the company for both the placing and open offer.
The placing comes as the company reported pretax losses of USD6.5 million for 2013, compared with a GBP1.9 million loss in 2012, as administrative costs rose to USD7.7 million from USD2.6 million, reflecting increased investment in people and technology to support the growth of of its exchange business.
Blur said the exchange business provides a platform for customers who need business services to work with service providers with the right expertise to deliver their projects.
Revenue rose to USD4.8 million during the year from USD2.8 million in 2012. The company said total bookings intake for 2013 increased to USD22.1 million from USD2.4 million and of this USD4.8 million was recognised as revenue for 2013.
The total bookings intake represents the project values, excluding listing fees, as agreed and confirmed by the customer in the year.
Blur said demand for large projects submitted through its exchange business led the company to increase its project ceiling to USD5 million during the year, having started the first quarter 2013 at USD1 million.
The firm said there were around 1,012 new business users, customers and experts adopting the exchange each month in 2013. Blur said it is seeing increasingly larger projects coming on to the exchange. Some of the new customers using the exchange for the first time in 2013 included office accommodation provider Regus PLC.
Blur said it made progress in 2013 and its goal for 2014 is to firmly establish itself in the enterprise space.
"We are confident that we are at the cusp of major, profitable growth as the benefits of s-commerce are experienced and understood by our markets," Chief Executive Philip Letts said in a statement. "I look forward with confidence into 2014 and beyond."
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected]; @AnthonyAllNews
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