Trifast raising up to £16m as it works through Covid crisis

Industrial fastenings manufacturer Trifast updated the market on its response to Covid-19 on Friday, and announced its intention to conduct a non-pre-emptive placing of new ordinary shares to raise up to £15m, and a broker option to raise up to £1m.

The London-listed firm said the placing was being conducted through an accelerated bookbuilding process, launched on Friday morning.

It said the placing would help ensure that the group could continue to invest in long term growth, as well as maximise its growth in the short-term as markets recovered from the Covid crisis.

The funds raised would allow the company to maintain its current year investment of around £5m in Project Atlas and other growth enablers, and would provide the confidence to deploy up to £10m of incremental working capital investment.

It would also ensure the group emerged from the crisis with a stronger balance sheet, capable of providing a platform to support further organic and acquisition growth.

Trifast said its cash preservation actions had further reinforced its financial position amid the pandemic, with “good levels” of covenant and liquidity headroom to manage through the period of disruption.

The group delivered a “resilient performance” in line with revised market expectations in the 2020 financial year, the directors noted, despite challenging market conditions and the initial impact of Covid-19 in the fourth quarter.

Its board said it had taken “swift and effective” action in response to the outbreak, reducing the operational and financial impact on the business.

Activity levels had shown improvement during May and into June, and the firm said it had the ability to ramp up to full production across the business as conditions improved.

“Despite Covid-19 the next couple of years for Trifast remain a very exciting time for our business,” said non-executive chairman Jonathan Shearman.

“As we look to implement and invest in a number of significant and positive changes in the way that we are structured and operate.”

At 1234 BST, shares in Trifast were down 5.62% at 126p.