HICL issues shares at a quid a throw

Infrastructure investor HICL Infrastructure has announced a share offer to pay down its debt and re-stock its war chest.

The £800m-valued company is proposing to raise £110m before expenses through the issue of "C" class shares at 100p each, though if the demand is there, the company may boost the size of the fund-raising exercise to £150m. The C shares will convert into ordinary HICL shares once certain investment criteria have been met. The share issue will be yanked if HICL's brokers cannot find buyers for at least 60m of the shares, although HICL has reserved the right to waive this condition.

It is intended that the net proceeds of the issue will be used to pay down existing group debt, to meet outstanding and anticipated investment obligations and to keep the company's acquisition bandwagon on the road.

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The placing is expected to close at noon on March 26th.

Under the terms of the open offer, existing shareholders will be entitled to subscribe for share on the basis of 1 C share for every 8 ordinary shares held on November 12th, 2010 (sic).

In order to implement the repayments of group debt, the company will transfer to the C share portfolio a pro rata share of the current investment portfolio with a value equal to the net proceeds of the share issue, in consideration for the purchase by the C share portfolio of loan notes which will be replicated down through the group structure.

Full details of the issue are available in the prospectus on the company's web site. Paste the following URL into your browser and then hit enter: https://tinyurl.com/DL-HICLprospectus

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