A national firm acts on $90m offer for dual-listed software company
Bell Gully has said that the accelerated entitlement offer structure continues to become increasingly popular as an equity capital raising structure for listed companies.
That’s after the firm confirmed that it is advising Gentrack on its accelerated entitlement offer, which it expects to raise about $90m. Proceeds of the offer will be used to pay down debt from recent acquisitions, the firm said.
Partner Toby Sharpe is leading the Bell Gully team on the Gentrack offering.
Because the offer to institutional shareholders can be accelerated and completed over several days rather than weeks typically made to retail investors, companies gain access faster to some proceeds in accelerated entitlement offers, Bell Gully said.
In the Gentrack offering, the company launched the offer early on 4 July, closing the institutional tranche by the end of 6 July. That portion raised $52.4m. The retail tranche, which will raise the remaining funds of the target, closes at the end of July.
“This structure is also popular as non-participating shareholders can receive value for their entitlements through the separate institutional and retail book-build processes,” Bell Gully said. “The NZ regulatory regime is now much more streamlined for accelerated entitlement offers. They can be executed relatively efficiently under the ‘cleansing notice’ regime under the Financial Markets Conduct Act and the class relief for accelerated offerings granted by the NZX last year.”
Dual NZX/ASX-listed companies such as Gentrack can also extent the offering to Australian shareholders without additional disclosure requirements, Bell Gully said. The firm advised Fletcher Building on its similarly-structured equity capital raising earlier this year.
