Companies are vying to undertake placings at present, to shore up their balance sheets in the face of the coronavirus epidemic. With many businesses closed, or suffering very substantial reductions in revenue, they can hardly be blamed for wanting to raise some cash. But private shareholders are disgruntled when they cannot take part in such fund raising, either by the use of a rights issue, or the inclusion of an “open offer” in a placing.
Let’s look at two recent examples – one I hold a few shares in, namely AIM listed Learning Technologies (LTG) and the other being Whitbread (WTB).
Yesterday LTG announced a placing when the market closed. This morning the details are provided. The shares were issued at a discount of 7.6% to the previous closing price and the dilution of existing shareholders was 9.6%. The directors participated including Chairman Andrew Brode and CEO Jonathan Satchell when private shareholders could not as there is no open offer.
That may not be a massive discount but it still rankles. However the shares could be bought in the market at near the placing price this morning. But my main concern is that the justification for the placing given by the company does not make much sense. They say that “The Company believes the current macroeconomic conditions present opportunities to accelerate future growth and gain further share of the $370 billion corporate learning market. The learning industry is highly fragmented and management believes high quality assets previously tracked, and potentially others that were not, are now becoming available at valuation levels that are highly compelling”.
Times are so tough it seems that you can now pick up some companies cheaply seems to be the argument. Does that make any sense? Not to me. Acquisitions are best made for strategic reasons, i.e. they are complementary business-wise and have good prospects, not simply because they are cheap. If they are also particularly cheap now because business prospects are much worse, that’s no reason to buy them surely?
The LTG announcement also refers to the “robust liquidity position” based on substantial facilities and refers to “further cash preservation” measures it has available. Is this perhaps hinting at some other reasons for the placing?
The other company worth mentioning is Whitbread. This company is now focused primarily on their budget hotel chain, Premier Inn. You can see why they may need the cash as both business and tourist travel has ground to a halt.
They said on the 21st May that “All restaurants and the vast majority of hotels closed in the last week of March 2020” and “Decisive action taken to reduce cash outflows and further enhance liquidity, including significant reductions in capital expenditure and discretionary spend, voluntary pay cuts for Board and management team and use of UK and German Government support packages”. They also announced a full rights issue to raise £1 billion.
They put a gloss on this by saying “The purpose of the Rights Issue is to ensure that Whitbread emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic in the strongest possible position to take advantage of its long-term structural growth opportunities and win market share in both the United Kingdom and Germany”, but they also said this which really spells out the main reason: “Actions Whitbread has taken have ensured its business can withstand a prolonged period of closures and/or low demand. However, given Whitbread’s high fixed and semi-variable costs, its balance sheet will be impacted by material cash outflows during the period when its hotels and restaurants are closed or operating at low occupancy levels as a result of UK Government measures and/or social distancing”.
You can see why the rights issue is a heavily discounted one – a discount of 47% to the market price on the 20th May to encourage people to take up the shares, based on one new share for every two held. It also indicates how large investors view the issue. They need a lot of encouragement to subscribe.
Now anyone who remembers the RBS rights issue back in 2008 which was also a heavily discounted one will recall what a disaster that was. Such issues are to be treated with caution. In the case of Whitbread, it’s simply a bet that the business can reopen in the next few months and that customers will return. Readers can make their own judgement on that, but the company certainly seems to be taking the necessary steps to survive. However investors should remember that just because you already have some money invested in a company, it is not a reason to put more in. You should just judge it on whether buying the new shares at the price offered makes sense given the prospects for the business. Let the institutions and index tracking funds worry about maintaining their percentage stake.
An interesting item of news last night was that Donald Trump has signed an Executive Order” seeking to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law enables social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, et al, to avoid responsibility for what appears on their sites because they are not treated as “publishers”. The law in the UK is similar.
That is based on the fact that they do not monitor, edit, or have control over what people post on such sites, and it might be very difficult to do so practically. But in reality they have been intervening in that way more and more. President Trump has raised the issue apparently because they edited a couple of his tweets to add “fact-check” links. Mr Trump only has 80 million followers on Twitter!
In reality these social media sites do monitor what is posted to remove or block some content. I recently had the need to complain to a financial blogger about some comments posted on an article on his site and it was very clear that he had been reviewing all such comments before they appeared, i.e. he was moderating the blog comments. In such circumstances it is difficult to see how someone could claim not to be the “publisher”.
In the financial world, it is quite important that what is published is accurate and responsible and I agree with Donald Trump. Social media sites cannot have it both ways – they are either moderating their sites or they are not, and it they are then they are publishers. In that case they have to take responsibility for all content, not just some of it. But if they are not moderating then the readers had better beware and there needs to be some other way to prevent or discourage libellous comments or market abuse from taking place.
Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson )
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