RBC placing additional shares at 20 rubles each with 15% premium on current market quotation
MOSCOW. May 18 (Interfax) - The board of directors at media holding OJSC RBC has set the placement price for an additional share issue at 20 rubles per share, the company said in a statement.
RBC plans to place 51,109,375 common shares. Therefore, is the additional issue is fully placed, the media holding will raise around 1 billion rubles.
The last deal with RBC shares on the MICEX-RTS index came to 17.39 rubles. Therefore, the company valued its share with a 15% premium against the current market quotation.
The placement price presumes a discount of around 6% against the average market price over the past three months, the statement said.
The placement price by preferred right is equal to the placement price by open subscription.
The placement starts on May 18. Shares, which are not purchased by RBC shareholders, will be sold to investors by open subscription after May 25. The additional shares should be allowed into trading on the MICEX-RTS at the end of June. Aton is the placement organizer.
Mikhail Prokhorov's Onexim Group said that it plans to exercise its preferred right and buy 51% of the additional share issue in proportion to the group's current stake in RBC.
RBC plans to earmark the funded raises largely for development in internet operations. Onexim has accused the founders of the media holding (German Kaplun, Alexander Morgulchik and Dmitry Belikov, who own 7%) in delaying the additional share issue since they do not have the funds to buy the shares through preferred rights even while RBC is in need of investment.
RBC's board of directors halted Kaplun's powers as general director in April and confirmed Onexim's executive director, Sergei Lavrukhin, to this position.
Onexim has said that RBC should raise additional financial resources through selling off noncore assets and holding an additional share issue, as well as reducing its debt burden by converting a portion of debt into capital.
RBC's sales revenue according to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) increased in 2011 by 35% to 4.68 billion rubles while EBITDA rose to 524 million rubles from 85 million rubles for 2010.