BlackRock Throgmorton Trust plans £22m placing – following on from the announcement on 12 November, the board of BlackRock Throgmorton Trust says that it proposes to raise additional equity capital through the issue of up to 3,307,686 new ordinary shares. The shares will be placed by Stifel Nicolaus Europe (the company’s broker) with mainly institutional shareholders (qualified investors as defined in Article 2(e) of the Prospectus Regulation) on a non pre-emptive basis. The company has already issued, or re-issued from treasury, 11,417,194 shares over the 12 months to 16 November 2020.
The placing price will be the unaudited net asset value, including current year income as at the close of business on the closing date of the placing, plus a premium of 1.5%. This premium has been set at a level sufficient to cover expected costs of the placing, so that existing shareholders will not be diluted. The placing is expected to close at 5.00 p.m. (London time) on 19 November 2020 but may close earlier or later at the discretion of the company and Stifel. It is expected that Admission will become effective, and that dealings in the new shares will start on or around 24 November 2020.
[The current NAV is about 671p, implying that the net proceeds of the placing should be about £22m and, if the placing succeeds, the company will have issued about £100m worth of shares over the past year, increasing liquidity in the trust’s shares and lowering the ongoing charges ratio as fixed costs are spread over a wider base. We have published a number of notes on the trust over the past couple of years. You can read the latest here].
THRG : BlackRock Throgmorton Trust plans £22m placing