City briefs: Benchmark; Optibiotix; and more
Aquaculture health, nutrition and genetics business Benchmark has conditionally raised £6.6m though an open offer to qualifying shareholders.
This means the listed Sheffield-based company has conditionally raised total gross proceeds of £43m by way of a share placing – which was also announced on 30 January 2020 – and the open offer.
The open offer and placing issue price was 40p per ordinary share.
Responding today, Peter George, executive chairman of Benchmark, said: “We are pleased to have raised the full amount envisaged under the Open Offer.
“The proceeds of the Open Offer and Placing will in part be used to scale up CleanTreat® as we prepare to launch BMK08, our novel medicinal treatment to combat sea lice, one of the main biological challenges in salmon farming.
“We are excited about the opportunity we now have to deliver Benchmark’s enormous potential.”
The open offer closed for acceptances at 11am on 13 February 2020. The company received valid acceptances from qualifying shareholders in respect of 30,691,713 open offer shares.
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York-based life sciences company Optibiotix Health says its wholly-owned subsidiary ProBiotix Health has signed a distributor agreement with Advanced NutriSolutions Inc./Select Ingredient.
The deal is for the exclusive sales of ProBiotix’s patented probiotic strain LPLDL® into the United States and Canada.
Under the terms of the agreement, Advanced NutriSolutions Inc./Select Ingredient will supply ProBiotix’s cholesterol and blood pressure-reducing probiotic strain Lactobacillus plantarum LPLDL®, under an exclusive licence, to customers in the United States and Canada for inclusion into dietary supplements formulation.
Advanced NutriSolutions Inc./Select Ingredient was founded in 1994 by Dr Bruce Howe.
It supplies nutritional ingredients, contract manufacturing services, and finished products to the nutritional supplement industry.
Steve Prescott, CEO of ProBiotix, said: “We are pleased to announce this distributor agreement with Advanced NutriSolutions Inc./Select Ingredient, which will expand LPLDL®’s reach and service level in the United States and Canada.
“Advanced NutriSolutions Inc./Select Ingredient was chosen as our partner because of their technical expertise in functional ingredients including probiotics, their industry reputation, and their manufacturing capabilities which allows them not only to sell LPLDL® as an ingredient but to create custom formulation and products for customers.”
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Listed home builder Persimmon has confirmed the appointment of Joanna Place to the Board as an Independent non-executive director with effect from 1 April 2020.
She will join the company’s Remuneration and Nomination Committees on the same date and will also chair the Corporate Responsibility Committee.
Since July 2017 Place has been the chief operating officer of the Bank of England with responsibility for the day to day management of the Bank including finance, technology, information and physical security, human resources, property, and procurement.
She has over 30 years of experience at the Bank of England, including leading teams in banking, statistics and regulation. Before her appointment as COO she was the bank’s HR director for three years.
Roger Devlin, chairman of Persimmon, said: “Jo is an outstanding talent and Persimmon will benefit from the great breadth of her management experience, in human resources in particular, in the course of her 30-year executive career at the Bank of England.
“Her knowledge and insights will be invaluable to the business as we continue to implement our programme of progressive change. I am pleased to welcome Jo to the board.”
