Ceres Power proposing raising 9.7m pounds through placing

Alternative energy company Ceres Power, is proposing to undertake a placing and open offer to raise up to approximately 9.7m pounds.

This represents approximately £9.5m net of expenses in aggregate through the issue of up to 120.9m new ordinary shares in aggregate at 8.0p per new ordinary share.

Some 108.5m new ordinary shares are to be issued through the placing to raise approximately £8.7m. Up to 12.5m new ordinary shares are to be issued through the open offer to raise up to approximately £1.0m assuming full take up of the open offer.

The company said that neither the placing nor the open offer are underwritten.

The issue price represents a discount of 0.2% to the mid-market closing price on March 8th 2013.

A statement issued by the company said: "The directors believe that the proceeds of the fundraise will provide sufficient capital to take Ceres through the next stage of OEM[[Original Equipment Manufacturers]engagements and that, following the deployment of these funds, the Ceres core cell and Fuel Cell Module (FCM) technology platform will be proven to be suitable for product development programes with several OEMs in multiple geographies.

"The board expects that Ceres will be able to generate revenues from a combination of development licences, on-going fees for services and royalties on OEM sales of mass market products incorporating the Ceres technology in due course."

The announcement is in line with the group's previously stated strategy.

In December 2012, Ceres announced that it had raised £3.3m before expenses via a firm placing and placing and open offer in conjunction with a restructuring of the business and the adoption of a new business strategy for the group.

In February 2013, it reported that it had completed the restructuring phase and that operating costs had been significantly reduced.

It said that the new strategy was to exploit its core cell and Fuel Cell Module technology platform across a broad range of product and market applications by partnering with multiple OEMs to embed the company's core cell and FCM technology in multiple product platforms.

MF