Perhaps because they're lenders and not investors, and the convertible note will be on the books for 5 years.
The people that have been "inadvertently" saying credit raise rather than capital raise were actually correct. The company is raising capital by way of a "debt" issue.
Senior unsecured zero-coupon convertible notes with a 5-year maturity are a type of debt instrument that combines several features:
- Senior Unsecured: These notes have priority over other unsecured debt in case of bankruptcy, but they are not backed by any specific collateral.
- Zero-Coupon: These notes are issued at a discount and do not pay periodic interest. Instead, they are redeemed at their face value at maturity
- Convertible: These notes can be converted into a predetermined number of shares of the issuing company's stock at a specified conversion rate.
Key Points:
- No Interest Payments: Since they are zero-coupon, investors do not receive interest payments during the life of the note.
- Conversion Option: Investors have the option to convert their notes into equity, which can be beneficial if the company's stock performs well.
- Priority in Bankruptcy: As senior debt, these notes have a higher claim on assets than subordinated debt in the event of bankruptcy.
- Maturity: The notes will mature in 5 years, at which point the principal amount is paid to the investor unless converted earlier.

So, every six months IMU pays back the lender $2.2 million as a redemption amount (i.e. loan repayment) or $2 million dollars in shares at the applicable conversion price, equal to a 25% premium to Imugene’s last closing price on 20 December 2024, but potentially up to 50% lower if the share price is lower at any of the six-month marks if/when shares are issued. So, each issuance would be $2 million worth issued somewhere between $0.0475 (upper limit) and $0.019 (lower limit).
Also this:
Bear in mind each note is worth $100k and a maximum of five notes can be converted in this mannerThen there's the ("free") warrants exercisable at $0.0494, which are really where the lender makes their money if the SP goes up significantly.
So, overall, this is a lot less dilution than I was expecting. The convertible notes are paid back over 5 years and can (almost all depending on the circumstances) be paid back in cash if something occurs which results in the company having cash to pay the notes back. I feel like this is more of a bridging loan to fund the trials through until a significant inflection point (whether that be success or failure, licencing agreement or take over), however it might simply have been the best-looking option on the table.
p.s. I highly recommend people review the announcement themselves and if anything doesn't make sense or is something you're not familiar with then do some research to better your understanding. I certainly did because I wasn't overly familiar with the concept of convertible notes. (I already knew warrants were a USA equivalent of options.)