Listed firm Ince this morning announced that it has raised a total of £9.5m from a fundraising exercise and open share offer needed to stave off ‘financial difficulties’.

Ince Group plc revealed last month that it was ‘at the limit of its borrowing facilities’ as it tried to raise around £8.6m from investors to ‘strengthen the group’s balance sheet, provide additional working capital and implement [a] cost rationalisation programme’.

The firm saw its shares halve in value after announcing that it had been hit by a cyber attack in March which would cost it some £5m.

Earlier this month, Ince said it was trying to raise a further £1.1m from existing shareholders by offering them the chance to apply for open offer shares at a price of 5p – which was actually more than the 4.85p at which shares were then trading. 

Ince told the London Stock Exchange today that it has ‘received valid acceptances and excess applications from qualifying shareholders pursuant to the open offer in respect of an aggregate of 4,201,831 open offer shares’.

The firm has now ‘conditionally raised total gross proceeds of approximately £0.2m via the open offer and a total of approximately £9.3 million via the fund-raising and open offer’, it said.

Ince has applied for the new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on the Alternative Investment Market, subject to approval at a general meeting due to be held later today.

Adrian Biles has meanwhile stepped down from his role as chief executive and been replaced by Donald Brown, executive director of Ince and chief executive of corporate adviser and stockbroker Arden Partners which was acquired in April.

Shares in Ince Group plc were briefly down by 1% to 4.95p on this morning’s news before returning to yesterday’s closing price of 5p.

UPDATE: Ince announced just before 1pm that a resolution to grant authority to its directors to ‘allot shares in the company in respect of the open offer’ was passed at the general meeting with 99.68% of the total votes cast in favour.

 

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