5th May 2016 16:47
LONDON (Alliance News) - Centrica PLC, the owner of British Gas, on Thursday said it raised GBP700 million in its equity fundraising, selling 350 million new shares at 200 pence each. The stock closed down 9.8% at 208.50p on Thursday.
The shares equate to roughly 7.0% of Centrica's shares prior to the placing. The energy company unveiled the placing earlier on Thursday in a move to reduce debt and accelerate its strategy by funding two acquisitions.
The placing was intended to allow Centrica to complete two acquisitions for a total of GBP350.0 million and to lower net debt by a further GBP400.0 million, which in turn will reduce pressure on Centrica's targeted strong investment grade credit ratings.
Centrica is turning its attention away from its exploration and production business, which focuses on finding and extracting natural resources, in order to focus on its "customer-facing strategy" based around energy supply, services, connected home, distributed energy and power alongside energy marketing and trading.
Goldman Sachs International and UBS Ltd handled the share placing.
By Samuel Agini; [email protected]; @samuelagini
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