RE: Rights Issue.20 Oct 2022 10:32
On the first of these, AML is retiring $40.2 mil. in Senior Secured Notes and $143.8 mil. Second Lien Notes. When converted to GBP this equates to £185 mil. or 28% of the £653 mil. raised. It’s a far cry from half and only reduces Gross Debt from £1.36 bil. to around £1.18 bil. While this will reduce the semiannual interest payments slightly, its nowhere near the level of reduction needed to get to a longer term cash flow positive position based on current sales levels. The answer to why they are not using more of the cash to reduce debt is in the second of the statements, AML clearly needs more of the funds to provide a “liquidity cushion”. In the 1st half of 2022, Aston Martin proceeded to burn through £248 mil. of cash and blow up their payables by £122 mil. After paying off the £185 mil. in notes, this would leave £468 mil. of the £653 mil. just raised. Taking the £156 mil. in cash on hand at the end of June, add in the £468 mil. remaining of from the recent raise gives you a total of £624 mil. Looking at the 1st half run rates on cash and payables, the reason more debt wasn’t paid off is AML will likely need most, if not all, of the £624 mil. just to keep the lights on for the next 12-18 months. I’m not sure what type of equity raise comes after “transformational”, but I guess we will find out around this time next year.