1st Oct 2015 06:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - NetScientific PLC Thursday said it plans to raise up to GBP20.0 million through a placing and additional fundraising to speed up development of its two portfolio companies, Vortex Biosciences and Wanda, as it reported a widened pretax loss for the first half of 2015.
The company reported a pretax loss for the half year to end-June of GBP5.4 million, widened from a pretax loss of GBP2.6 million a year before, mostly as a result of higher administrative costs, and research and development expenditure. It reported operating income of GBP452,473, up from GBP175,218.
NetScientific will raise GBP18.0 million through the placing of 15 million shares at 120 pence, in a placing conducted by Investec Bank and Liberum, and will raise a further GBP2.0 million through a private placing of 1.7 million shares at the same price.
This is a 19.5% discount to the company's closing middle market share price of 149 pence Wednesday.
The company is undertaking a realignment, looking to focus only on healthcare, particularly the sub-sectors digital health, diagnostics and therapeutics. It has begun to sell off non-performing assets and assets that fall outside of this area, and after the year end sold its investment in Frontier Biosciences Ltd.
In June it appointed François Martelet as its new chief executive officer as part of its reorganisation.
"The past six months have been transformative for the group with the appointment of a new group CEO, a comprehensive review of the portfolio and overall strategy, and the resulting focus on digital health, diagnostics and therapeutics only. Strong progress has been made in our portfolio companies, particularly Vortex and Wanda, which are about to enter into their commercialisation phases," said Chairman Richard Sykes in a statement.
"We have a clear road map for the development of our portfolio companies and with the proposed fundraising today, we will be well positioned to deliver significant shareholder value," Sykes added.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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