In QuotedData’s morning briefing 10 June 2021:
- Octopus Renewables Infrastructure (ORIT) has announced a proposed issue of ordinary shares of 1 pence each, to raise gross proceeds of around £100m. The Issue will be by way of a placing, open offer, offer for subscription and intermediaries offer for a target issue of up to 96,551,724 ordinary shares at an issue price of 103.5 pence per share. This price represents a premium of 6.3% to NAV per share as at 31 March 2021 and a discount of 3.5% to the closing price per share on 9 June 2021 of 107.2 pence per share. Chris Gaydon, investment director at Octopus Renewables, said :“We have had a very positive start since listing in December 2019, having built a portfolio of 24 assets across a variety of different sectors and geographies within ORIT’s mandate. This fundraising will enable us to maximise the opportunities from our strong pipeline of potential investments, continue our growth trajectory and develop the portfolio further.”
- FastForward Innovations (FFWD) has increased its holding in Little Green Pharma, a vertically integrated medicinal cannabis business. It has purchased 1,178,000 shares in the company on the Australian Stock Exchange at an average price of A$0.655 per share. This takes FFWD’s holding to 2,716,462 shares, representing 2% of Little Green Pharma’s issued share capital. Little Green Pharma products comply with all required Therapeutic Goods Administration regulations and testing requirements. It supplies medical-grade cannabis products to both Australian and overseas markets and a strong focus on patient access in the emerging global medicinal cannabis market. Ed McDermott, CEO at FastForward Innovations, said: “We continue to be impressed with the management of LGP and believe in their strategy. We will continue to support the company both financially and with our cannabis sector expertise and we are looking forward with confidence to their further growth and progress.”
- Aquila European Renewables Income (AERI) has increased its potential commitment in The Rock project by up to €35.6m in order to bridge its share of expected future draw-downs under the project’s existing debt facility required to bring it to completion. AERI has also announced that it has made its first draw-down under the bridging of approximately €3.6m. The Rock is a 400MW onshore wind farm project located in Norway, which is currently under construction, with completion expected by the end of 2021. As announced earlier this month, AERI acquired approximately 13.7% of the project, noting a possibility to increase its commitment in due course. The bridge is being provided while the project satisfies certain conditions required in order to draw-down under its debt financing agreement, which AERI expects to be met in the near future. It is structured as a shareholder loan at a fixed rate which upon satisfaction of the conditions, will be paid back.
- Aberdeen Diversified Income and Growth (ADIG) has released its interim results for the six months to 31 March 2021. Over the period, the trust’s NAV per share (with debt at fair value and including income) rose by 2.8% while its share price was up by 3.8% or a total return (assuming dividends are reinvested) of 6.8%. Over the 12 months to 31 March 2021 however, the NAV rose by 15.2% while the share price total return was 11.6%. The company reiterates that while this is in line with its performance target, this needs to be judged over a rolling five years and not one year. During the six months, ADIG bought back 7.2m shares into treasury at a cost of £6.9m. Its discount (calculated with debt at fair value) narrowed from 17.2% at 30 September 2020 to 15.5% at 31 March 2021. The board said it will continue to monitor the discount on a daily basis and buy-back shares into treasury, or undertake share issuance if required. ADIG has already paid a first dividend of 1.38 pence and announced a second of 1.38 pence to be paid next month. On an annualised basis, a quarterly dividend of 1.38 pence per share is equivalent to a dividend yield of 5.8% based on the period end share price of 95 pence. Davina Walter, chair of ADIG, said: “With still so much uncertainty surrounding the short term outlook, we believe the company’s revised strategy, to provide a regular and dependable dividend as well as potential capital growth from a genuinely diversified portfolio consisting of a wide range of assets, each with clear, fundamental performance drivers, will deliver an attractive return to our shareholders over the medium term.”
We also have interim results form GCP Infrastructure, full-year results from Gabelli Value Plus+ and JLEN Environmental Assets, and an acquisition by LXI REIT. Meanwhile, the notice of requisition on Gresham House Strategic has been withdrawn.