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LONDON (Alliance News) - Gresham House Energy Storage Fund PLC said Tuesday it has raised GBP49.7 million gross via a share placing in order to acquire more energy storage systems.
Gresham House ESF owns a portfolio of five utility-scale energy storage systems in the UK and will use the money from the share placing to commit to acquiring more, with all net proceeds to be deployed by the first quarter of 2020.
Shares in Gresham House ESF were up 0.5% at 103.50 pence on Tuesday morning. The placing 49.2 million shares was priced at 101.0 pence per share, a discount of 2.5% to this market price.
The company said there are potential investors "conducting due diligence on the energy storage asset class" and said it may undertake one or more additional share placing under its programme, which is open until October 16 and provides for a further 50.8 million new shares to be issued.
"As the proportion of total electricity supply from renewable sources grows in Great Britain, the need and business case for energy storage systems becomes ever greater. The company benefits from an attractive pipeline and we expect to deploy the proceeds by the beginning of next spring, consistent with our expectations at the time of the [initial public offering] in November 2018," said Gresham House ESF Chair John Leggate.
Once the 49.2 million placing shares are admitted to trading, Gresham House ESF will have 149.2 million shares in issue.