4th Nov 2015 11:35
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hochschild Mining PLC Wednesday said it fell a touch short of its target under its recently announced and heavily discounted rights issue, but all the shares available were issued because it was fully underwritten.
In mid-October, Hochschild announced its plan to conduct a heavily discounted rights issue with the intention of raising around GBP64.8 million, raised through a three for eight rights issue of 137.9 million new shares at a price of 47.0 pence per share, a huge 47.6% discount to its closing share price before the announcement was made.
Hochschild shares were trading up 1.4% to 74.0 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
On Wednesday, Hochschild said it received total acceptances for 134.9 million shares, representing around 98% of the shares available under the rights issue, meaning it fell just short of its target.
Importantly, the rights issue was fully underwritten by JP Morgan Cazenove, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and RBC Capital Markets, and later Wednesday morning the company confirmed that they have taken up the remaining 3.0 million shares there were not taken up under the rights issue.
The under-writers subscribed to those shares at a much higher price of 70.0 pence per share, but that is still a discount to the company's share price.
When it launched the rghts issue earlier this month, the company said it was conducting the rights issue to give the company "financial flexibility going forward", despite reporting a cash balance of USD75.0 million at the end of September.
It also pledged at least half of the proceeds toward repaying outstanding debt, with the remainder being held as cash to "to ensure certainty of access to the funds and liquidity in light of the prevailing price volatility in precious metal prices."
That would suggest Hochschild will have around USD105.5 million in cash after the rights issue, alongside a lower amount of debt.
Directors of the company took part in the rights issue. Founder and Chairman Eduardo Hochschild acquired 74.7 million of the shares available to push his total holding up to 274.1 million shares.
To put that large figure into context, Hochschild had 367.7 million shares in issue prior to the rights issue, and will have around 505.6 million shares in issue after the rights issue, the shares of which will be admitted to trading on AIM later Wednesday. That means Eduardo Hochschild comfortably owns over half the company, around a 54% stake, and remains firmly in control.
Deputy Chairman Roberto Danino upped his stake by acquiring 75,000 shares to take his total holding to 275,000 shares and Chief Executive Ignacio Bustamante acquired 45,466 shares to take his total holding to 166,700 shares.
Graham Birch bought 3,750 shares to take his holding to 13,750 shares, Nigel Moore purchased 18,750 shares to take his holding to 68,750 shares and Malcolm Field upped his holding by 5,356 shares to 19,641 shares. They are all non-executive directors of the company.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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