Published on: October 30, 2020

From strength to strength

Kape has announced that it has raised gross proceeds of $115.5 million through a significantly oversubscribed placing and retail offer of 59.2 million shares at 150p and will use $72 million of the proceeds to buy out the two major vendors of PIA, the transformational deal which the Group completed at the end of 2019. The remaining $43.5 million will be used to strengthen the Group’s balance sheet as it looks to select further acquisitions. There is an additional tax-related cash benefit of around $50 million over 15 years that is now available to Kape following this change to the PIA deal structure. This seems an intelligent way of removing any potential share overhang while also adding further to the group’s M&A firepower. Kape will cancel the shares which it acquires from the vendors and will not issue the vast majority of the deferred shares. With trading still robust and guidance unchanged, we make no alteration to our underlying business assumptions. Our EPS estimates reflect the changes to the shares in issue, both existing and prospective.