HSS Hire announces £13m share placing

HSS Hire has conditionally placed just over 15.4m shares at 83.875p with certain existing institutional investors to raise about £13m before expenses to strengthen its balance sheet.

The tool and equipment hire group – which warned back in November that 2016 earnings would be above the prior year but below the range of market expectations – said the outlook for the financial year ending 31 December is unchanged from that set out in the nine-month trading update.

HSS said the scale and complexity of the transformation programme it is currently in the process of carrying out , together with the ongoing investment to support revenue growth, has led the board to conclude that an equity injection would strengthen the balance sheet and provide additional flexibility to fund fleet investment.

“Having assessed various equity funding options, the board concluded that the placing would be the most efficient method in terms of cost, time and management resource.”

Numis Securities is acting as sole broker in connection with the placing.

At 0940 GMT, HSS shares were up 0.4% to 84.36p.