Assura PLC (LON:AGR) has raised roughly £185mln of cash to pay for developments and acquisitions of GP surgeries and other primary healthcare facilities.
The institutional placing was completed at price of 83.5p, an 8% discount to the closing price after the market closed on Monday.
Assura said it had, before the first coronavirus case in the UK was reported, a £165mln pipeline of opportunities for developing new properties and acquiring others, which has continued to grow in the past few months
The pipeline includes £81mln of onsite developments that have been approved by the NHS and are mostly to be completed in 2020 — though the government’s coronavirus lockdown measures “may introduce some delay”.
There are also £67mln of acquisition opportunities in legal hands and expected to complete within the next three-six months, with £41mln of acquisitions completed in the last month.
Finally, Assura has identified £17mln of spending that it believes can “generate incremental value” in its existing portfolio.
Once the proceeds of the placing are spent, management said they should have headroom of around £250mln to invest in further property additions before the company’s loan-to-value reaches 40%.
Shares in the company were down just over 7% to 77.51p on Tuesday morning.