Ascential PLC (LSE:ASCL), the information, analytics and eCommerce optimisation company, has raised roughly £156mln by placing shares at 432p.
The shares were down 7.2% at 421.6p this morning.
The newly placed shares represent around 9% of the issued share capital of the company before the issue of the new shares.
Duncan Painter, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Ascential, bought £1.4mln of the shares while the chief financial officer, Mandy Gradden, bought £199,999 worth and the chair, Scott Forbes, coughed up £78,421 for 18,153 shares.
The fundraising comes after Ascential announced the acquisition earlier this month of a 51% stake in ASR, a digital content optimisation business, for US$122mln. The group has the option to acquire two further stakes, each representing 24.5% of ASR’s share capital, between July 2022 and June 2025.
The cash raised will give Ascential more firepower for future acquisitions. The company said it has a strong pipeline of attractive target opportunities, predominantly in digital commerce.
After the close of trading yesterday, the group published its half-year report in which it said trading had been ahead of expectations.
Revenue rose to £175.1mln from £127.9mln in the first half of 2020 while adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) soared to £47.7mln from £11.5mln the year before, while the loss before tax narrowed to £7.7mln from £86.1mln. The disparity between the EBITDA and the loss before tax was largely accounted for by depreciation and amortisation (the D & A in EBITDA) of £25.6mln and exceptional charges of £15.6mln relating to the group’s “successful continued execution” of its mergers & acquisitions strategy.
The board has not declared a dividend, preferring to earmark the money for acquisitions.
"Ascential's results demonstrate excellent momentum, performing ahead of our own expectations and of market expectations, with organic revenue growth coming through strongly in our Digital Commerce, Product Design and Marketing segments,” Duncan Painter said.
"This reflects three key factors – our strategic direction over the past five years, as we have built a market-leading Digital Commerce business; strong demand from the high-growth markets that receive our focus, particularly Digital Commerce; and the unstinting efforts of our talented people through a period of unprecedented macro-environmental challenges. We expect these factors to underpin continued positive progress throughout the rest of 2021. Furthermore, as we emerge from the pandemic, our Marketing and Retail & Financial Services segments are both very well positioned to benefit over successive years from a post-Covid recovery in activity levels,” the CEO added.