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Johnston Press achieves 92pc take-up for new shares

Regional publisher Johnston Press has revealed it received 92.5pc take-up for its recent offer of new shares.

The company had offered 4,589,889,334 new shares for sale at 3p each as part of a £360m refinancing package.

Today it announced that it hold sold 4,234,141,261 of them – a take-up rate of 92.25pc.

Trading in the new shares is expected to begin on the London Stock Exchange today.

In a statement issued this morning, the company said its brokers Panmure Gordon and JP Morgan Cazenove would use “reasonable endeavours” to find buyers for the remaining 355,748,073 shares not taken up in the rights issue.

However if they remain unsold, Panmure Gordon and JP Cazenove in their capacity of underwriters would purchase the shares themselves.

Since the rights issue was announced, JP’s share price has fallen from 17p to around 3.9p.

However most of this fall in value had been anticipated with the refinancing plan envisaging the shares would trade at around 4.8p.

8 comments

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  • June 13, 2014 at 9:46 am
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    Oh dear, oh dear. This whole sorry affair gets worse by the day. Considering one of the JP’s head honchos bought a load (probably to save it all going pear-shaped), Im not surprised.
    I suspect any shareholders who saw their investment drop by such a staggering amount will not be pleased by AH & Co’s antics.

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  • June 13, 2014 at 11:51 am
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    Sorry, I read this as 92% take up, not 8% take up, so what is the previous ‘expert’ wittering on about? And what part of ‘underwrite’ isn’t clear!?

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  • June 13, 2014 at 11:53 am
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    Beastie, it’s not quite as bad as you say, depending on when you entered the market. Many shareholders bought the old shares at rock bottom, 3p or so. Yes they did go up to 27p or whatever, and they are back at square one after the RI. But each share owned entitled the holder to six shares in the new issue at 3p. That means, if you are brave and have the opportunity, you can invest in industrial size amounts. Today the new 3p shares are 3.80p. They might go down of course, or they might go up. As things stand today many people are where they started on the first tranche and .80p x zillions up on the RI. Of course it’s squeaky bum time, but I’m hoping the football will take my mind of it.

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  • June 13, 2014 at 12:11 pm
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    Shareholders had no choice but to take up the rights issue. If they never they would be looking at a big loss.

    What about the shareholders who are taking up the rights and are selling the lot. Any news on these figures Ashley?

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  • June 14, 2014 at 1:03 pm
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    Anyone left who remembers JP shares at about £4?

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  • June 16, 2014 at 7:38 pm
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    hackette, midlands. Probably the same experts who think the inter web is a myth, wrongmove.co.uk is still in the head of a teenagers bedroom in Kettering and motortrader.co.uk is as likely as the hybrid engine. And as for chewinggumtree.com, that’s stuck under your desk with an opening lid. Your point about £4 is?

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  • June 17, 2014 at 7:42 am
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    What truth is there in the rumour JP is informally in merger talks with Trinity?

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  • June 18, 2014 at 8:32 pm
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    The rumour of a merger is about 3 years old now. Trinity could have had the Sunderland HT70 presses when it closed in 2012 as they were far superior and newer than the ones used at the Newcastle operation. Sunderland were printing the daily mail for Trinity as they couldn’t do it. A great opertunity missed an good profesional people made redundant by Johnston Press.

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