Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC (LSE:AML) confirmed a proposed £575mln rights issue and a £78mln strategic investment from Saudi Arabia to reduce its debt and try to turbocharge its growth.
New shares will be sold at 335p, almost a 10% discount to the last closing price, or over 30% since rumours of a new funding round emerged and down 75% on the share price at the start of 2022.
Conditional upon the underwritten rights issue, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) sovereign wealth fund will spend £78mln buying 23.3mln new shares, which would make it Aston Martin’s second-largest shareholder after executive chairman Lawrence Stroll.
PIF would also be given a non-executive director seat on the board.
The luxury British sports car manufacturer said it believes the proposed capital raise will serve to further support its re-affirmed medium-term targets of roughly 10,000 wholesales, £2bn revenue and £500m adjusted EBITDA by 2024/25.
Aston Martin also reported strong demand trends and said trading had been in line with expectations, with GT/Sports cars have already been fully sold out into 2023 and order intake for its DBX vehicle more than 40% higher year on year.
Wholesale volumes have been hit by supply chain disruptions, including Covid-19 lockdowns in China, down to 2,676 from 2,901 in H1 2022.
The shares rose 3.3% to 383.7p following the news.