(Alliance News) - Foreign exchange services provider Argentex Group PLC on Tuesday started its life on London's junior market, trading at a significant premium to its initial public offering price.
At midday, Argentex was trading at 135.00 pence. Last Thursday, the firm placed its new shares at 106p - representing a premium of 27%.
Argentex placed 12.7 million new shares and issued a further 551,887 new shares for subscription, raising GBP14.0 million. Additionally, 30.6 million existing shares were sold by current investors in Argentex.
Based on the issue price, the company has a market capitalisation of GBP120 million. Based on today's trading, however, Argentex now has a market cap of GBP152.8 million.
Argentex has 113.2 million shares in issue.
Argentex has previously said the net proceeds of the listing, expected to be about GBP12.5 million, is intended to increase the company's "trading capacity". About GBP2 million of the net proceeds will be used to pay down some of the Argentex's debt.
For the year ended March 31, Argentex reported pretax profit of GBP7.8 million on revenue of GBP21.9 million. Year-on-year, Argentex's profit doubled and revenue jumped 66%.
The gross currency traded by the company totalled GBP10.8 billion in the twelve month period. Argentex had 1,141 corporate clients at March31.
Going forward, the company intends to pay an interim and final dividend, representing a pay-out ratio of about 30% of profit after tax.
Argentex Group. (AGFX)