The Board is pleased to announce that the Initial Issue has been very significantly oversubscribed and investor demand for the Initial Issue has exceeded the maximum issue size.
In determining the number of new Ordinary Shares to be issued, the Board has taken into account the strength of the Investment Adviser's near term investment pipeline, current available cash resources and the Company's stated dividend target.
The Board, after consideration and consultation with the Investment Adviser and Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited (“Stifel”), the bookrunner, has determined to re-allocate 50,000,000 Ordinary Shares available under the Share Issuance Programme to the Initial Issue. Accordingly, 238,679,245 new Ordinary Shares will be issued at the Initial Issue Price of 106.0 pence. The gross proceeds of the Initial Issue will be £253.0 million.
A total of 238,679,245 new Ordinary Shares will be issued (subject to Admission as defined below) of which 113,061,369 new Ordinary Shares will be issued pursuant to the Open Offer (including the Excess Application Facility) and 125,617,876 new Ordinary Shares will be issued pursuant to the Placing and the Offer for Subscription. Application has been made for the new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to the Official List and to trading on the London Stock Exchange's premium segment of the Main Market (“Admission”). It is expected that Admission will become effective and dealings in the new Ordinary Shares will commence on 12 October 2018. Once issued, the new Ordinary Shares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares.
Following Admission, the Company will have 1,060,489,512 Ordinary Shares in issue. Therefore, the total number of voting rights of the Company will be 1,060,489,512 and this figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest, or a change to their interest in, the Company.
Due to the very significant demand, a scaling back exercise has been undertaken with respect to applications received pursuant to the Placing, Open Offer (with respect to the Excess Facility) and Offer for Subscription.
Unless otherwise defined, the terms used in this announcement shall have the same meaning as set out in the prospectus of the Company dated 19 September 2018.
Robert Jennings, Chairman of SEQI commented:
“2018 has been a significant year for SEQI as we reached our three year track record and following this equity issue we will be able to increase the value of our invested assets to over £1.2 billion. We are very appreciative of the support shown by both existing and new shareholders over the past three years, which is a strong endorsement of our strategy.
The investment opportunity in the economic infrastructure debt market remains compelling and we are confident of being able to generate attractive returns to shareholders as the Company further grows in size.”