Ascendis Health’s little-supported rights offer is a boon to its major shareholder and founder Coast 2 Coast (C2C), if CEO Karsten Wellner is to be believed. C2C took up almost all the 37.5-million new shares offered in the pharmaceutical company’s R750m cash call. At R20, it was pitched at a 4.6% premium to the stock’s 30-day trading average when it was launched in November. The share price lost 5.14% on Monday to close at R14.22 and based on this, C2C paid a premium of about 40%. Wellner said C2C’s plan was to "underwrite the whole amount with the intention not to dilute existing shareholders too much and to pick up a considerable amount of shares, which they would not be able to do on the open market due to low liquidity". The company plans to use the funds to cut vendor liabilities for its chunky Remedica deal, as well as to reduce overall debt. "C2C might have been able to pick up the shares slightly cheaper, but a rights issue does not happen over night." According to the righ...
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