E&P's Paul Mason notes that NextDC's capital raising is not as...

E&P's Paul Mason notes that NextDC's capital raising is not as large as the last one in 2020, and dramatically de-gears its balance sheet."There is a relatively high short interest in the stock, so potentially purely for this sake the raising may end up seeing a positive share price reaction as it takes any questions about the balance sheet off the table," he says.

Mr Mason says he didn't think the company needed to raise equity, given the size and terms of its debt facility as well as its credit metric profile, but notes that it has a history of funding expansion projects with equity in the front end and debt in the back end."We would expect the raising to be taken up well by existing shareholderss," he adds..E&P has a Positive rating and $18.53 target price.