Tritax Big Box successfully completes share issue

There was a fresh injection of capital heading Tritax Big Box's way on Friday, with the company's board announcing the success of its Placing, Open Offer and Offer for Subscription of Ordinary Shares.

It had first announced the issue on 27 January.

The FTSE 250 real estate investment trust's board said demand for the offer significantly exceeded the targeted size of £100m.

It said, after careful consideration with the manager and in consultation with its joint financial advisors, it was to utiliise part of its annual pre-emption disapplication authority in a tap issue, to satisfy £50m of the excess demand on equivalent terms to the placing.

Tritax Big Box confirmed the total size of the issue when aggregated with the tap issue was £200m, which was still significantly lower than the total demand.

A total of 161,290,323 ordinary shares would be issued at 124p per share. Of those, 53,513,170 would be issued pursuant to the open offer, 7,435,906 under the offer for subscription, 60,018,666 under the placing and 40,322,581 under the tap issue.

The board confirmed all valid applications under the open offer, excluding excess applications, were met in full, and a scaling back exercise was undertaken on the applications received for the placing and the offer for subscription.

"We are delighted by the success of this fundraising against the backdrop of very difficult equity market conditions," said non-executive chairman Richard Jewson.

"On behalf of the board and the manager, I would like to thank existing shareholders for their continued strong support and welcome a significant number of new investors," he added.

Tritax Big Box said the net proceeds of the issue would be used to acquire further investments, with discussions currently taking place with the owners of a number of potential targets.

"The company has an attractive pipeline of investment opportunities which are expected to be value accretive to shareholders over the medium term," said Tritax partner Colin Godfrey.

"We look forward to building an increasingly diversified portfolio, generating income growth underpinned by a growing rental stream and a low cost base," he added.

The issue remained conditional on the passing of resolutions at the general meeting, which was to be held on Friday, as well as admission of the shares no later than 0800 GMT on 16 February, and the placing agreement becoming unconditional in accordance with its terms.