12th Jul 2016 15:22
LONDON (Alliance News) - Funding Circle SME Income Fund Ltd Tuesday said it plans to raise between GBP10.0 to GBP15.0 million through a placing that will be priced at a premium to current net asset value, but structured differently to what it had originally intended.
Funding Circle said it has invested over 90% of the net proceeds from its initial public offering, meaning it requires further funds, and the fund said it has the right to increase the size of the placing if investor demand justifies it.
The new shares will be priced at a 2.0% premium to the net asset value that will be published by Funding Circle this Thursday. The placing will close next Tuesday and the results confirmed on the Wednesday before the shares are admitted to trading on July 25.
At the end of the first half to the end of March, the cum-income net asset value stood at 98.85 pence and the ex income NAV was 98.0 pence.
On Tuesday afternoon, Funding Circle shares were trading up 1.5% to 98.75 pence per share.
Goldman Sachs International is acting as the sponsor, global co-ordinator and bookrunner and Numis is acting as the co-bookrunner.
Notably, Funding Circle said it is raising the funds under the share issuance programme which was established by the fund as a flexible mechanism to issue ordinary shares or C shares to satisfy market demand.
The placing unveiled Tuesday will only involve ordinary shares.
Funding Circle said back in June that it would be conducting the capital raising, but said this would be "most likely in the form of a C share issue", claiming that there was a benefit to opting for those rather than ordinary shares.
"As is usual in C share offerings, any funds raised will be deployed in a separate pool until the earlier of nine months or at such time as the funds have 90% invested, at which time they would be converted to ordinary shares, thus avoiding the performance drag on the ordinary shares that would otherwise derive from holding a substantial cash position pending investment," it said in June.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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