White knight revs up his Aston Martin rescue bid
ASTON Martin’s white knight will pump even more cash into the luxury car maker in a desperate bid to keep it afloat.
James Bond’s favourite marque had already seen its market value crash before the pandemic-induced stock market rout.
But the coronavirus outbreak’s effect on sales of cars in China and the delay to the release of the 25th Bond film No Time To Die have pummelled its stock even further.
Formula One billionaire Lawrence Stroll and a group of other investors struck a deal to save Aston in January, which included pumping £55.5m into the company through a short-term loan.
The consortium has now agreed to raise this by £20m, to £75.5m in total, to keep it afloat in the immediate future.
But because of the fall in Aston’s share price, other parts of the deal have been renegotiated, because they were based on a share price of 400p. Stroll’s group will now take a bigger stake in the company – 25pc, rather than 20pc – for less money.
And Aston will raise more money through an issue of new shares than previously planned – £536m instead of £500m.
In a statement, Aston said the coronavirus pandemic has not yet affected production but it has hit sales in China and Asia – adding that it ‘has the potential to do the same in other markets’.
Aston floated on the London Stock Exchange for 1900p in October 2018 – valued at £4.3bn – but profit warnings, huge losses and emergency fundraisings hammered the company’s share price by late 2019.
Its shares fell 3.9pc, or 8.3p, to 206p last night, though this was before the 107-year-old company made the announcement about Stroll’s increased investment, which was revealed after the market had closed.
Volatility was the word on the stock market yesterday, though the FTSE 100 managed to rise 2.5pc, or 128.63 points, to 5366.11 by the closing bell.
Miners led the index higher as China recorded a sharp drop in the rate of new infections, as traders prepared for the commodity-hungry country to ramp up industrial production.
Steel maker Evraz rose 12.5pc, or 25.4p, to 228.8p, the world’s biggest mining company BHP added 12.2pc, or 114.2p, to 1054p and Rio Tinto climbed 10.3pc, or 306p, to 3274p.
The FTSE 250 fell 1pc, or 155.42 points, to 15562. Travelex-owner
Finablr staged a staggering rebound, increasing in value by 158.4pc, or 7.13p, to 11.63p, a day after it warned investors that its very survival was in doubt.
Elsewhere on the FTSE 250, Canaccord Genuity upgraded
Yorkshire-based paving specialist
Marshalls from ‘ sell’ to ‘ hold’, though it cut its target price for the shares from 710p to 700p.
Its 2019 profit jumped by 11pc to £70m in 2019, Marshalls said on Thursday.
Over on AIM, pharmaceutical group Redx Pharma skyrocketed 190pc, or 9.5p, to 14.5p, after it confirmed a private company has made another offer to buy it after takeover talks ended two weeks ago. Yesod Bio-Sciences wants to buy it for 15p per share.
Sam Waksal, Yesod’s boss, is a serial biotechnology entrepreneur and the former head of a group called Imclone. While at Imclone, he was involved in an insider trading scandal that led to him and veteran TV personality Martha Stewart serving jail time.
And online gambling software provider Gan’s shares fell 5.3pc, or 6p, to 108p, as figures showed the amount of money wagered on sports bets across the industry last month in the state of New Jersey fell compared with January.