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QuotedData’s morning briefing 7 April 2020

Assura updates on primary care portfolio

In QuotedData’s morning briefing 7 April 2020

  • At 16:42 yesterday, Assura announced plans to issue up to 240,207,920 shares to fund the purchase of additional medical centres. £2.5m would be donated to the Assura Community Fund, to support local communities in areas where it has assets, most would go to finance investments – it had a £165m pipeline of projects ahead of covid-19. JPMorgan and Stifel looked for buyers of shares from the ranks of professional investors. Individual investors didn’t get the chance to participate. At 7am this morning Assura announced that all the shares had been placed at 77p, raising £185m. The share price was a 7.8% discount to the closing price on 6 April. [For Assura to be able to raise £185m from investors in a couple of hours is remarkable. To do it in the current environment, even more so. Although, if you were a private investor in the company, wouldn’t you be a bit upset that you didn’t get the chance to buy shares? Increasingly, it seems to us that treating private investors as second class citizens is wrong. We wonder how long it will be before a class action lawyer takes a look at the situation and seeks redress on behalf of all those investors who miss out on the ability to buy shares at a discount. The counter argument is that it is cheaper and, as this deal illustrates, much faster to bypass individual investors, to the benefit of the company as a whole. To this we would say, then the rules and methodology around placings needs to change. Ways must be identified to make these deals available to everyone. It cannot be that difficult.]
  • EIH plans to cancel trading of its shares in AIM from 18 May 2020. Shareholders are being asked to approve this at a meeting on 7 May.
  • GCP Student Living says its agreement to buy Scape Canalside Mile End, a new 412-bed student accommodation property, has lapsed. It might still buy the asset but not under the terms agreed back in October 2017.
  • Majedie is trading at a premium to asset value after its shares soared by 27% yesterday, apparently on speculation that Majedie Asset Management will be awarded the management contract for Perpetual Income & Growth. We would point out that Majedie Investment Trust owns just 17.2% of MAM. MAM was its biggest investment at the end of February 2020 (23.4% of its portfolio). MAM made a £32m profit on AUM of £14bn in 2018. then its AUM dropped significantly and Majedie wrote down the value of its stake. Winning the Edinburgh Investment Trust mandate will have helped rebuild revenues but the potential addition of £6m in revenues from the contract to manage Perpetual Income & Growth (MAM’s share £1m) would not be transformational enough to justify the £25m increase in the value of Majedie yesterday.

We also have a covid-19 update from Workspace

 

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