Fund managers were left scratching their heads when struggling online car group LatAm Autos went into a trading halt to raise nearly more than a quarter of its current market cap.
The group, which has been an underperformer since listing, hopes to raise between $13.5m and $18.5m. It is capitalised at
just $50m.
But the structure of the deal was queried after the term sheet showed that if the company was able to raise the $18.5m, buyers would receive two-thirds of their shares now and the remainder after a shareholder vote. That means investors would be exposed to any share price moves between now and the vote.
The shares were being placed by Bell Potter at 16c, or no discount to the last closing price.
LatAm shares are off by more than 50 per cent compared to its 30c listing price when it debuted in December 2014.
The offer was open only to institutional investors and the term sheet shows the company plans to use at least $10.9m of the cash for core business expansion, $3.9m on marketing and $1.1m as working capital.
LatAm was co-founded by investment bankers Gareth Bannan, who was with KPMG’s corporate finance practice, and Tim Handley, who worked with Gresham and UBS in M&A.
The capital raising was carried out on the same day that carsales.com revealed it was ramping up in South American business by buying the DeMotores website in Argentina.
The site was bought for $6.7m.
LAA Price at posting:
16.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held