Tanfield Regulatory News (TAN)

23 Oct 2006 07:01

Tanfield Group PLC23 October 2006 Tanfield Group plc ("Tanfield" or "the Company") Placing/Notice of EGM Tanfield Group PLC ('Tanfield' or the 'Company') has conditionally placed up to£20m (before expenses) through an institutional placing of new ordinary sharesat 40p per share by Daniel Stewart & Co, the Company's nominated adviser andbroker. These shares will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares. The Company has convened an Extraordinary General Meeting for 15 November 2006at which shareholders will be asked to give the Directors authority to allot upto 50,000,000 new Ordinary Shares in the Placing. Admission is expected on 16November 2006. The Directors will utilise the net proceeds of the Placing as working capital.This will accelerate the growth in output of Tanfield's Powered Access Division,bringing it in line with the exceptional growth in order intake. In addition,the Company is in advanced negotiations with its bankers with a view toextending the debt facilities available to it by approximately £5 million toapproximately £9m.. The order book for Powered Access continues to exceed expectations, with orderintake consistently hitting £1m or more, every week for the past six weeks. Thisis well ahead of current analyst projections for 2007, which forecast averageoutput of £500,000 per week for the Powered Access Division. The Directors believe that recent commercial developments and the fund raisingsignificantly enhance growth prospects for the Group. The majority of the working capital will be invested in the supply chain, whichwill allow Tanfield to capitalise on sourcing components from low costcountries. Working capital will also support an expansion of the Company'sglobal network of independent distributors; grow the machine spare partsbusiness; and expand the UpRight model range. Projected turnover from the Powered Access Division for 2006 is expected to beunaffected by these developments. A circular explaining that the Directors consider that the Placing is in thebest interests of shareholders as a whole and recommending that they vote infavour of the special resolution to be proposed at the Extraordinary GeneralMeeting, is being posted to shareholders today. Enquiries: Tanfield Group plcRoy Stanley - Chairman Tel: 01207 521 111 Daniel Stewart & Co plc Tel: 020 7776 6550Ruari McGirr This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange