Fishing retailer raises £1.3m in share placing

Fishing tackle retailer Fishing Republic has raised £1.3m through a placing of 13m new ordinary shares of 1p each at a price of 10p per placing share.

The placing was offered to new and existing shareholders, including directors. The Rotherham-based firm said that net proceeds will be used to further advance and develop the company’s e-commerce operations, logistics and merchandising activities following the recent review of operations.

It will also be used to provide additional working capital to accelerate the rate of growth of online sales.

James Newman, the company’s executive chairman, and Iain McDonald, a non-executive director of the company, have subscribed for 50,000 and 600,000 placing Shares respectively. On completion of the placing, Newman will hold 211,906 ordinary shares and McDonald will hold 950,000 ordinary shares, representing, respectively, 0.4 and 1.8% of the company’s enlarged share capital immediately following admission.   

In addition, the company announced that it has issued 1m ordinary shares at the placing price as part of the payment for consultancy services provided for the review of the business and operations which was recently completed.

Earlier this month, the firm reported a buoyant Christmas sales period as it casted its net for a permanent chief executive. Interim chief executive Chris Griffin left  the company having completed the strategic review.

The news followed the company’s announcement in November that it had seen a “significant deterioration in trading” with a 13% decline in like-for-like sales in October, leading to  its CEO Steve Gross stepping down and Griffin appointed acting chief executive.

Richard Naish and Christopher Blair from Walker Morris provided legal advice to Fishing Republic.