Augean in £13m fundraising
HAZARDOUS waste specialist Augean today announced a £13m share placing to help it cut its debt and provide working capital as it looks to enter new markets.
The Wetherby-based group said that the fundrasing, which has been underwritten by Singer Capital Markets, would see 34.2m new shares issued at 38p each representing 34.3% of the enlarged issued share capital of the group.
The shares are priced at a 17.4% discount to the Augean closing share price on AIM last night.
Chief executive Paul Blackler, said: “We are pleased with and grateful for the strong support we have received from our existing shareholders and from new institutional investors. The support demonstrates the compelling growth prospects in the underlying Augean business.”
“The new capital ensures that Augean is in a strong position to renegotiate banking facilities in due course and is well equipped to benefit from market recovery from the economic downturn.”
The group also announced its half year results today with profits and revenues down in the six months to June 30.
It saw underlying pre-tax profits of £1m compared to £1.2m for the same period last year while operating profits were £1.5m against £2.3m last time.
Revenue excluding landfill tax was down to £15m from £16.8m last year.
The group had reduced its net debt to £18m from £20m at the half year stage.
Mr Blackler said: “The unprecedented downturn in our key client sectors continues to create a challenging trading environment which we expect to remain difficult for the remainder of the year. We face these challenges with a strong and well structured business base focused on the development of long term growth through securing market share.
“We have reduced costs to adapt to the trading conditions and implemented plans to tightly control capital expenditure for the remainder of the year. The development of our strategically important scarce assets to provide solutions to the decommissioning markets, coupled with the extension of our technologies into new markets, makes the group extremely well positioned to benefit from both market recovery and growth from our new initiatives.”
