News blog
Ten Alps
- BY: Andrew Hore |
- POSTED: 21/12/2010 |
Factual media business Ten Alps is raising cash and has secured a new loan facility to enable it to restructure its business and focus on organic growth.
Ten Alps is raising £4.7m at 8p a share and a further £1.5m from a loan note issue to Herald Investment Management. The new shares equate to 44.3% of the enlarged share capital. The cash will be used to pay off bank debt and a deferred consideration payment. There is £1.3m of deferred consideration on the balance sheet with around £200,000 owed after more than one year.
The directors are subscribing for more than 5.2m shares in the placing.
The loan notes are repayable on 31 March 2016 with interest compounded and paid at the time of redemption.
The £6.95m bank facility with Bank of Scotland lasts until March 2014 with £1m repayments in each of March 2012 and March 2013. The bank facility and loan notes are both secured on the company’s assets.
Net debt was £5.82m at the end of September 2010.
The business will be refocused on two operating units: TV and education contents and B2B media.
Ten Alps fell into loss in the six months to September 2010, even before a £11.3m intangible assets write-off. An interim profit of £2.2m was turned into a loss of £1.75m in the latest period. Both the division’s lost money but it was the turnaround in the B2B side from profit to loss that was mainly behind the poor figures. Revenues fell from £35.4m to £28.5m with nearly all the downturn coming in the B2B division.
Ten Alps has identified £1m of cost savings for the B2B division and the dependence on the public sector has been reduced. Low margin business is being stopped. These operations generated revenues of £3.2m in the first half. The marketing businesses are being integrated with the publishing operations.
Ten Alps is still hoping that Teachers’ TV could continue in some form. The government is stopping its funding of the online TV channel. That business has generated annual revenues of £10.7m and profit contribution of £1m. There was a profit contribution in the latest figures.
Peter Bertram is taking over as chairman from Brian Walden, who remains on the board.
The fundraising announcement was too late for any reaction from the share price. At 8.5p a share, Ten Alps is currently valued at £6.27m.
Download the December edition of AIM Journal at http://www.hubinvest.com/AIMPDFDecember2010_15.pdf
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