Hornby raises £15m through Aim placing
Troubled model maker Hornby has raised £15m, delisting and placing 16m shares on Aim, it said this morning.
The company said it had placed new ordinary shares at 95p per share, and will use the cash it raised to pay off £8m of bank debt.
The news came as the company announced it had steamed back into the black, with underlying profits before tax rising to £1.6m in the year to the end of March, up from a loss of £1.1m last year. Revenues rose 13 per cent to £58.1m, while reported loss after tax fell to £100,000, from £4m last year.
The company – which launched a crowdfunding scheme for out-of-production Airfix models (called, naturally, "Kitstarter") in May – added that with a new head office in Sandwich and an e-commerce team in London's trendy Shoreditch, things were beginning to look up.
Having improved relationships with suppliers, the next stage of the plan involves upgrading its "warehouse arrangements" in Europe, it said.
"After a year of hard work and numerous challenges… we are improving product deliveries and quality from our supply chain, and I remain confident that the turnaround plan will continue to deliver," added chief executive Richard Ames.