iWeb won't display Corporate Action

Froggitt2

One of my shares announced a fundraising last week. ii have allowed their customers to subscribe for more share at the offer price. iWeb aren't allowing their customers to do so. It was a pretty big discount so the share price fell by 25%, so I'd really like to re-buy in at the lower price. They are having a directors meeting today to discuss whether to do so (!!! yes I know). If they don't, do I have any recourse? I would want them to put me into the position that I would have been had I been able to subscribe for the shares. Who would I take this to? Financial Ombudsman?

george4064

Which company is it?

Froggitt2

Agronomics ANIC https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ANIC/result-of-fundraising/14972884

lozzy1965

I have done this as part of a Corporate Action with iWeb many times.  I assume it's just that nothing has been agreed yet?

Froggitt2

lozzy1965 said:

I have done this as part of a Corporate Action with iWeb many times.  I assume it's just that nothing has been agreed yet?

So have I. But this one apparently needs discussion by directors. What needs to be agreed? ii had it up Wednesday last week, and the offer says "may close early". 

wmb194

It has until the 26th to communicate its customers' take-up so I'd give it a few days. As Lozzy says, it would make sense for iWeb to await the outcome of today's meeting.

"To provide shareholders and other investors who did not have the opportunity to participate in the Fundraise, the Company has granted an option (the "Broker Option") to Peterhouse, subject to the completion of the Fundraise, to subscribe for up to an additional 9,090,909 new Ordinary Shares (the "Broker Option Shares") at the Issue Price together with Warrants on a one for one basis.  The Broker Option is exercisable any time before 26 May 2021."

underground99

Froggitt2 said:

lozzy1965 said:

I have done this as part of a Corporate Action with iWeb many times.  I assume it's just that nothing has been agreed yet?

So have I. But this one apparently needs discussion by directors. What needs to be agreed? ii had it up Wednesday last week, and the offer says "may close early". 

Presumably they need to have some sort of internal signoff before they make corporate actions or other services available to investors. So what needs to be agreed is whether they are going to participate in Peterhouse's 'broker option' on behalf of their customers. Based on the news release you posted, it is not a 'rights issue' where everyone gets to subscribe for x shares and warrants for each y share in their existing holdings. They are simply offering a certain amount of new shares (£2m alongside the main £50m fundraising) with 'priority given to existing direct or indirect shareholders'.

Given it is a £150m company raising £2m (aside from the main £50m placing / fundraising) you might expect that the new shares and warrants actually available might be pretty thin on the ground when shared out between all the existing holders who didn't participate in the main raise. With several hundred million shares already in issue, you could perhaps guesstimate  how many of the 9 million new shares you would actually be able to get if IWeb had let you apply.  If you're not a major investor, it may not be a huge amount of pounds and pence discount for you to be 'missing out on'.
  
As wmb said above, they will have some time to still do the applications if they decide to offer it.   So it's a wait and see job. Presumably you are maxing out your request for shares through your ii account?

Froggitt2

underground99 said:

Froggitt2 said:

lozzy1965 said:

I have done this as part of a Corporate Action with iWeb many times.  I assume it's just that nothing has been agreed yet?

So have I. But this one apparently needs discussion by directors. What needs to be agreed? ii had it up Wednesday last week, and the offer says "may close early". 

Presumably they need to have some sort of internal signoff before they make corporate actions or other services available to investors. So what needs to be agreed is whether they are going to participate in Peterhouse's 'broker option' on behalf of their customers. Based on the news release you posted, it is not a 'rights issue' where everyone gets to subscribe for x shares and warrants for each y share in their existing holdings. They are simply offering a certain amount of new shares (£2m alongside the main £50m fundraising) with 'priority given to existing direct or indirect shareholders'.

Given it is a £150m company raising £2m (aside from the main £50m placing / fundraising) you might expect that the new shares and warrants actually available might be pretty thin on the ground when shared out between all the existing holders who didn't participate in the main raise. With several hundred million shares already in issue, you could perhaps guesstimate  how many of the 9 million new shares you would actually be able to get if IWeb had let you apply.  If you're not a major investor, it may not be a huge amount of pounds and pence discount for you to be 'missing out on'.
  
As wmb said above, they will have some time to still do the applications if they decide to offer it.   So it's a wait and see job. Presumably you are maxing out your request for shares through your ii account?

No, my mate applied thru ii. There doesn't appear to be any limit to the number that you can apply for.

Froggitt2

UPDATE: So they put the corporate action up, but they said Please note that any elections made will not be submitted to the Company until after our internal election deadline has passed. If the Broker Option is closed prior to our internal election deadline, we will not be able to submit your election."
So if the broker offer closes early, I'm stuffed? Is this a normal clause?

underground99

As Peterhouse Capital (the company's broker receiving the requests from eligible counterparties) has said they will prioritise existing investors, there should not be a problem having your request counted as long as IWeb do send it in with a reasonable time before Peterhouse has to finalise things for the Company ; it needs to be there by noon on 26th at the latest.  You'd imagine IWeb are reasonably experienced in dealing with this sort of event. So it will probably be fine.

They hold a block of shares as nominee for all their customers. There's clearly a tradeoff between saying they will cut-off for requests from their customers in five minutes time (where they would be much more likely to catch the deadline even if it cuts off early, but hardly anyone would get a chance to react to it) and keeping the list of customer requests open for ages and ages before sending in their aggregated request (which gives customers the maximum amount of time to make a request but is less likely to catch any early-closure of the offer).

So IWeb are giving you a standard caveat that they can't control whether something changes and if some earlier cut-off is needed (before they have finished collecting their customer orders) they may miss it.  That seems fine to me.

As you don't have an automatic right to buy a specific number of shares even if you get the request in in good time, the best they can do is plan to submit by the published deadline and if that changes then tough luck.   On the face of it, there's no obvious reason why the deadline would need to change.

Froggitt2

For everyone that's helped, thanks. This is the company who's shares I own, https://agronomics.im/portfolio/   and this is a writeup in the paper at the weekend https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/is-lab-grown-meat-the-answer-to-the-chicken-shortage-jzxvxv8gx

Yes I could have bought more in the market, but the cherry on this cake is the warrants issued 1 for 1 with these new shares. Still a long way for these shares to go IMHO.....it's being run by the guy who started Innocent Foods, seem to have just a handful of staff, and they invest in a couple of dozen clean meat companies across the world.

What's interesting is that they have a Rabbi who says that lab grown meat is not meat - in the Jewish religion it counts as parve, the same as vegetables. Vegetarians and vegans that I've discussed with are split on whether they could eat it.