Financial services firm Investorfirst has raised more than $1 million in a 70 million share placement with existing company shareholder Thorney Holdings.
The placement, a separate arrangement to Investorfirst’s rights issue announced on 20 July, involved 70 million ordinary shares, or 10.2 per cent of the issued ordinary shares in the company, being issued to Thorney.
The agreement with Thorney comes just weeks after Investorfirst announced it was exploring funding options for the company and the sudden departure of two of its senior executives.
In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Investorfirst said the placement provided it with “certainty in relation to the company’s capital requirements and, in conjunction with the rights issue, places it in a strong position to continue its strategy of rolling out the Hub24 platform to financial advisers and consolidating the stockbroking division of the company”.
Investorfirst managing director David Spessot was unavailable for comment on the share placement or the staff departures by InvestorDaily‘s deadline.
The placement is expected to be completed in mid-August and will result in Thorney owning a relevant interest in the company of about 16.9 per cent.
“Under the terms of the placement agreement, the number of shares to be issued in the placement will be scaled back and adjusted to the extent necessary to ensure that after the issue of shares under the rights issue and the placement, Thorney’s voting power in the company does not exceed 20 per cent,” Investorfirst said.
The Investorfirst rights issue closes at 5pm on 15 August.
Late last month, Investorfirst announced it would seek to raise $10.3 million through a rights offer as well as explore funding talks with third parties.
Under the offer, shareholders will be able to purchase shares at $0.015 a share, a price the company said represented a 51.6 per cent discount to the volume weighted average price of Investorfirst shares for the 30-day period ended 12 July of $0.031.
As well as announcing the rights offer, the Investorfirst board said it intended to further explore an unsolicited, highly conditional, non-binding and incomplete proposal from an unrelated third party regarding “an alternative funding initiative”.
The proposed share offer was a result of continued poor markets and subsequent poor performance of the listed company, former Investorfirst chairman Otto Buttula said in a statement to the ASX at the time.
Less than a week after the rights announcement, Buttula and one of the company’s senior non-executives quit.
Company deputy non-executive chairman Jason Entwistle had assumed the role of interim chairman, Investorfirst said.
