Midas pays off BoS

FUND manager Midas Capital has paid off £2.4m, or 17%, of the preference shares held by the Bank of Scotland following a refinancing earlier in the year.

In March Midas struck a deal with the bank to convert debts worth £36.5m into a combination of preference shares and a new loan facility.

Under the terms of the deal it must buy back the shares within seven years. If £2.5m of the nominal value is not repaid by September, 2011 the bank can subscribe for a further 10% of the company’s ordinary shares – giving it an aggregate holding of 29.9%.

Midas, which owns Liverpool-based Midas Capital Partners, has made the repayment from working capital and with cash from the September sale of its Intelli broking business to the Canadian firm Canaccord Adams.

A further £11.5m is outstanding on the debt which Midas is expected to partially pay off with the proceeds from the anticipated £7.25m disposal of its Iimia Wealth Management arm to insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson.

Midas has already said it plans to use a large part of the cash to “further retire the group’s preference share capital” if the deal completes in January.