LONDON (Alliance News) - Arria NLG PLC said Monday that it has raise GBP3.75 million through unsecured loan notes in the first stage of a capital plan being managed by investment bank MSL Capital Markets.
The next stage of this capital plan involves Arria listing on the New Zealand Stock Exchange, which the company expects to complete this year, although it said it also will consider alternative capital sources.
The software development company has agreed the early drawdown of GBP1.8 million from the Ikonic Fund SAC Ltd, consisting of two instalments under its unsecured convertible loan note instrument with Ikonic that were not due for drawdown until the end of 2015 and end-March 2016. Arria has agreed to pay some costs Ikonic will incur in allowing it to draw down the funds earlier than originally agreed.
It has raised an additional GBP1.9 million through subscriptions for new loan notes from existing shareholders, with the same terms as the Ikonic notes, which had a conversion price of 40 pence per share. Subscribers will also receive warrants to subscribe for new shares in the company at 12 pence per share.
Shares in Arria closed at 17.03 pence last Friday.
Arria had been in funding talks back in April, but these plans were terminated after it lost a contract with a unit of FTSE 100-listed oil company Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which meant its revenue expectations were plunged into doubt.
"Such strong support of Arria's business direction is indicative of the participating shareholders' belief in the long-term value proposition of Arria's Natural Language Generation technology," said Chairman and Chief Executive Stuart Rogers in a statement.
Arria said it is continuing to gain clients at around one new client a month, and since the beginning of May it has won contracts with three new clients.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
