5th Sep 2008 11:00
5 September 2008
Hot Tuna (International) PLC
("Hot Tuna" or "the Company")
Equity Placing and Trading Update
The Board of Hot Tuna (International) PLC, a leading surf wear and fashion brand, are pleased to announce that it has placed 26,250,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 2p per share ('Placing Shares') with new and existing shareholders (the 'Placing'). Application will be made for the 26,250,000 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 12 September 2008.
The Placing proceeds of £525,000 (before expenses) will allow the Company to service its growing order book of surf apparel for stores in Europe, America and Australia.
Hot Tuna continues to expand into the fashion retail segment through its focus on better designs and fabrications, while still catering for its core branded surf-retailers, with its iconic, logo-driven offerings.
A leading UK department store has increased Hot Tuna from 5 stores for Spring 2008 to 45 stores for Spring 2009, based on previous factual sales-numbers, that were higher than well known surf brands.
On the back of Hot Tuna's initial success in securing orders from key fashion retailers in the US such as Fred Segal and Patricia Fields, major US department-store chain Delia's have placed orders for Spring 2009. The Directors are confident that the re-branding exercise that has occurred over the last 12 months will begin to pay dividends in the US for Spring 2009.
New distributors have been secured for Portugal, Scandinavia, Holland, Peru and negotiations are ongoing for Mexico, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Canada.
The Company continues to look for a suitable standalone store in the UK in order to further expand its offering.
Niels Juul, CEO of Hot Tuna (International) PLC, said: "This has been an exciting but by no means easy year. After substantial cost-cutting and other essential company restructuring measures, we now have a manageable, cost-effective and productive staff that have created fantastic new product. There is no short-cut to good, original design and a sourcing structure that will bring quality product to market and keep margins in good order. To accomplish this with dramatically reduced overheads and general costs, we now know we do have the ability to make Hot Tuna the global brand that we are aiming for. More work remains to be done, but over the last three months we have seen great evidence that we are on the right track."
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Enquiries: |
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Hot Tuna (International) PLC David Lenigas - Chairman Niels Juul - CEO |
Tel: 020 7016 5100 Tel: +12138919409 |
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Pelham PR Kate Catchpole |
Tel: 020 7743 6678 |
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Seymour Pierce Limited Mark Percy / Parimal Kumar |
Tel: 020 7107 8000 |
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