Avacta Group plc
Placing
Issue of Equity
Directors Dealing & PDMR
Target of becoming a substantial and profitable business supporting the life
sciences sector is on track
Avacta Group plc ("Avacta" or "the Company"), the biophysics company which
provides innovative high value technologies and services to the pharmaceutical
and diagnostics markets, announces that it proposes to raise up to £2 million
(gross of expenses) from a conditional placing of 133,333,328 new ordinary
shares of 0.1 pence each ("New Ordinary Shares") at a price of 1.5 pence per
Ordinary Share (the "Placing"). 96,666,662 of the New Ordinary Shares have been
placed by Daniel Stewart & Co plc ("Daniel Stewart") with institutional and
other existing and new shareholders pursuant to a Placing agreement, the
details of which are set out below. The remaining 36,666,666 New Ordinary
Shares are to be placed by Daniel Stewart using a reasonable endeavours basis
within 6 weeks of this announcement and this will be the subject of a separate
announcement.
Use of Proceeds & Strategy
The cash proceeds of the Placing, amounting to approximately £2 million (before
expenses) will be used to accelerate Avacta from the strong position it has
achieved since admission to AIM, towards its near term goal of being a
profitable and substantial business providing products and services to support
the life sciences sector. The funds will be deployed to support the rapid
growth of Avacta's own products and services and to support further acquisition
opportunities.
Since coming to AIM in late 2006 Avacta has exceeded its stated developmental
and commercial milestones and has established two operating businesses in its
target markets of drug development and diagnostics. These businesses form the
routes to market for its high value technology products. The Company recently
announced the first sales of Optim, its flagship product, which is designed to
significantly reduce risk and cost throughout the biopharmaceutical drug
development process. In addition, the Company is expected to launch its first
diagnostic product, Midas, into the veterinary healthcare market in early 2010.
This system will be capable of delivering a wide menu of rapid diagnostic blood
tests for both veterinary and, in due course, human healthcare. Avacta has
several other products in development which will follow Optim into the drug
development market and has already received sufficient customer interest
indicating considerable demand.
The funds raised will be used to accelerate the commercialisation of these new
products and diagnostic tests through improvements in infrastructure and
enhanced commercial teams. In addition to its organic product pipeline, the
Company is pleased to report its achievements in integrating the four
complementary acquisitions made during the past two years. The Company has
identified and is exploring other potential acquisition targets each of which
could bring technologies and expertise into the growing business.
The Placing
The Placing Agreement contains warranties in favour of Daniel Stewart given by
the Company and the Directors with respect to its business and certain matters
connected with the Placing. In addition, the Company has given customary
indemnities to Daniel Stewart in connection with the Placing and their
performance of services in relation to the Placing. Daniel Stewart has certain
rights to terminate the Placing Agreement in specified circumstances.
Pursuant to the Placing, certain Directors of the Company will subscribe for up
to 3,333,331 new Ordinary Shares in aggregate. Details of the Directors'
subscriptions and resultant holdings are listed in the table below:
Director No of Placing Number of shares on Percentage of Issued
shares subscribed Admission Share Capital on
for Admission
Alastair Smith 666,666 50,228,296 4.02%
Tim Sykes 666,666 3,785,384 0.29%
Gywn Humphreys 1,333,333 14,659,169 1.17%
Tony Robards 666,666 9,557,768 0.77%
Pursuant to the Placing, IP Group plc and IP Venture Fund, a fund managed by IP
Group in which IP Group is an investor (together "IP Group") will subscribe for
up to 36,666,666 New Ordinary Shares at the Placing Price. Following Admission,
IP Group will be interested in 283,168,762 ordinary shares, representing 22.7
per cent of the Company's issued share capital on Admission.
As IP Group is a significant shareholder in the Company, the subscription for
New Ordinary Shares by IP Group is a Related Party Transaction as defined by
the AIM Rules. Accordingly, the Directors have consulted with Daniel Stewart
and together they consider that the terms of the subscription by IP Group are
fair and reasonable insofar as the shareholders are concerned.
Admission
Application has been made for the New Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading
on the AIM market of London Stock Exchange plc and dealings are expected to
commence on 22 October 2009. The New Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with
existing shares in issue. Following the Placing, Avacta's issued share capital
comprises 1,249,168,733 ordinary shares of par value 0.1 pence each.
21 October 2009
For further information, please contact:
Avacta Group plc Tel: 0844 414 0452
Alastair Smith, Chief Executive Officer www.avacta.com
Tim Sykes, Finance Director
Nominated Adviser & Broker Tel: 020 7776 6550
Daniel Stewart & Company Plc www.danielstewart.co.uk
Simon Leathers/Stewart Dickson
Financial PR Tel: 020 7417 8989
Haggie Financial LLP
Nicholas Nelson Nicholas.nelson@haggie.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
About Avacta
Avacta was spun-out from the University of Leeds in 2004 by its current
management team as a biophysics company, with the aim of combining the
disciplines of physics and biology to develop innovative technologies and
expert technical services to address unmet needs in the biopharmaceutical and
healthcare sectors. Avacta has a core bio-analytical technology development
programme addressing the needs of the biopharmaceutical sector to fully
characterise their new products at the earliest stage in their development to
reduce the risk of late stage failure. High end analytical instruments and
leading edge contract research services are being provided to the
biopharmaceutical and healthcare/personal-care materials sectors through
Avacta's biotech support division, Avacta Analytical. High value solutions for
rapid, point of care diagnostics based on these core bio-analytical
technologies, with a near term focus on veterinary diagnostics, are being
delivered through Avacta Animal Health. Longer term these technologies will be
transferred into the human clinical diagnostics market. Avacta listed on AIM in
August 2006.
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