In a bid to strengthen its balance sheet and support development programmes, Creo has announced a £28.5m (£26.8m net proceeds) fund- raise through institutional investors by placing 142.5m new ordinary shares at 20p/share (a 28% discount to the 15 February closing price). The fund-raising, subject to shareholder approval (AGM expected on 8 March), was oversubscribed against the minimum target of £25m, indicating strong shareholder support. In addition, Creo has announced an open offer to shareholders to raise another £5.2m in funds via the conditional issue of c 26m ordinary shares. Creo plans to use these funds to support its commercialisation plans, ongoing R&D efforts, licensing and partnering opportunities as well as working capital requirements. Notably, we estimate these funds to be sufficient to take Creo to net profitability (H126 as per our projections). We will incorporate the fund-raise into our estimates following shareholder approval and completion of the process.
