Tech company raises $25.8m to pay off debt
Gentrack Group said it raised about $25.8 million in a stock offer to retail investors, in the second part of a twostage share sale aimed at raising funds to repay debt used for a recent flurry of acquisitions.
Total take-up under the retail entitlement offer, which closed on July 26, was 68 per cent, Aucklandbased Gentrack said in a statement.
The company is now offering a retail shortfall bookbuild for 1.93 million entitlements, being run from yesterday.
The previous institutional entitlement offer, which was run earlier this month, raised about $31.5m.
Its shortfall bookbuild of 3.4 million entitlements achieved a clearing price of $6.69 per share, a premium of 50 cents per share over the offer price of $6.19 and a discount of 19 cents per share to the theoretical exrights price of $6.88.
The $90m capital raise is fully underwritten by Deutsche Craigs and UBS New Zealand.
The funds raised will go towards repaying bank debt taken on after a series of four acquisitions totalling $138m before earn-out payments, which the utilities software developer says will leave it with almost no bank debt and give it a strong enough balance sheet to make more acquisitions.
In June, Gentrack bought UKbased energy data analysis software and services provider Evolve Analytics for an enterprise value of $44m, adding to last year’s acquisition of UK billing and customer information systems firm Junifer Systems for $74.6m and European airport software developers Blip Systems and CA Plus for about $20.3m.
The shares last traded at $6.89, and have risen 4 per cent this year.
The stock is rated an average “hold” based on three analyst recommendations compiled by Reuters, with a median target price of $6.69.