Holde Agri Invest closes private placement in less than 48 hours, raises 12 million lei
15 June 2020
Holde Agri Invest closes private placement in less than 48 hours, raises 12 million lei amid oversubscription
Bucharest, 15 June 2020 – Holde Agri Invest SA, a Romanian agricultural company operating farmland, has successfully closed a private placement offer for its shares, having raised 12 million lei from Bucharest Stock Exchange investors. The offer which started on June 11th and closed on June 12th has attracted significant interest from local investors.
“The success and the promptness with which we closed this private placement for Holde’s shares is a sign that investors appreciated our business model and the potential of the Romanian agricultural sector. As we’ve closed the offer amid oversubscription and with many interested investors who did not manage to place their orders in time, we will now focus on bringing Holde to the AeRO market as soon as possible. We consider the success of our second private placement a sign that there is a large potential in the Romanian capital market, and investors have an appetite to support local entrepreneurial businesses. We will keep appealing to different financing methods as we continue developing Holde’s business” said Iulian Cîrciumaru, President of the Board at Holde Agri Invest.
The offer for Holde shares was structured in two stages. In the first stage, shares worth approximately 2 million lei were sold to existing shareholders. In the second stage, the company has placed 9,102,322 new ordinary shares, which were sold for 1.1135 lei per share. Following the private placement, the market capitalization of Holde is over 50 million lei. The company currently operates 7,000 hectares of land but plans to reach 10,000 hectares by the end of this year.
“The 12 million lei we raised in our second private placement will fuel investments in storage facilities and irrigation systems, thus making Holde’s business more independent and resilient to external factors. Agriculture is a capital-intensive industry, especially at the beginning, but once the business reaches a certain scale, it will reap the benefits indefinitely. We are on the right path to making Holde the player of reference on the Romanian agri market, and we thank the investors for their trust in our business proposition” said Liviu Zagan, CEO of Holde Agri Invest.
The subscription rate for the offer reached 120%. A total of 80 new investors participated in the placement, and today, Holde has a total of 132 shareholders – retail and institutional investors. SSIF Goldring and BRK Financial Group were the brokers assisting Holde in this transaction. The company expects to list on the AeRO market of the Bucharest Stock Exchange in September 2020 and will dedicate the next weeks to fulfilling all formal requirements. Holde will be the first agricultural company to be listed on BVB. The company’s stock will be available for trading under the HAI symbol.
Following the listing, Holde will continue to actively use different capital markets financing mechanisms to maintain its development. One of the methods already planned by the management is acquisitions of companies and extension of the arable land through share swaps and capital increases by contribution in kind.
Holde’s goal is to become one of the most prominent Romanian players on the local agricultural market, reaching a minimum of 20,000 hectares of cultivated land within the next seven years. To achieve this objective, Holde will invest over 50 million euros in land acquisitions as well as new machinery, storage facilities as well as modern irrigation systems.