News blog
Optare
- BY: Andrew Hore |
- POSTED: 20/12/2011 |
Optare is raising £4m through a placing at 0.27p a share that will give the Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland and associated companies 75.1% of the bus manufacturer.
The Optare share price more than halved from 1.38p to 0.6p, which values the existing share capital at £4.51m.
Optare will also change its bank facilities to the Ashok group. The existing facilities were extended to the end of 2011 and the interest charge is 8 percentage points above base rate. It has been extended for a further month. The plan is for Ashok to provide up to £12m but it wants to own 75% of Optare as part of the deal.
Production has been consolidated at Sherburn and this means that costs will fall in 2012.
Optare has won an order worth up to £18m from South Africa. The order is for 190 Solo SR midibuses for the City of Cape Town. The buses will be produced by Busmark 2000 in Cape Town. The components and sub-assemblies will be supplied to Optare.
The order book is worth £59m. There is a further round of UK funding for ‘green’ buses from April 2012.
Ashok intends to retain the Aim quotation.
Download the latest AIM Journal from http://www.hubinvest.com/AIMPDFDecember2011_27.pdf
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