SUPERGLASS Holdings has completed a move from the main London Stock Exchange to the junior Alternative Investment Market following a restructuring that directors hope will put the company in a much stronger position.
The listing of the Stirling-based insulation manufacturer's shares on the main market was cancelled yesterday when the stock started trading on Aim.
The move to Aim was part of a shake-up under which Superglass raised £12.9 mil-lion from investors to help stabilise its finances.
Superglass has been grappling with the consequences of the slowdown in the housebuilding market while waiting for official efforts to curb carbon emissions to provide a big spur to insulation sales.
The company used £3m of the money it raised to repay some of the £12m it owed to Clydedsale Bank. The bank converted another £5.7m into convertible shares – that could hand it around 10% of the company – and wrote off £750,000 fees.
Superglass said following admission to Aim, its cash balances total approximately £9.2m and the level of core debt is "substantially reduced" to £2.5m. The fundraising resulted in the significant dilution of the holdings of small shareholders.
Belfast-based commodities and agricultural group W&R Barnett, Superglass's largest shareholder, raised its stake from 22.3% to 26.6% after spending £3.5m on new shares. London-based hedge fund Ennismore Fund Management increased its holding to 21.8% after committing £3m.
Investors backed the restructuring at a general meeting last month.
Chief executive Alex McLeod said then the fund-raising and related investment would have a transformational effect on Superglass by allowing it to cut debt and reduce its cost-base significantly.
Shares in Superglass Holdings closed at 48p yesterday.
The company placed 25,800,000 new ordinary shares at 50p per share last month. In a related share consolidation every 25 post-capital reorganisation shares were consolidated into one new ordinary share.
The placing price was equivalent to 2p per share on a pre-share consolidation basis, the same as the closing price on May 2, 2013.
Superglass floated at 180p per share in July 2007.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article