WANdisco launches £13m share issue

The Sheffield-based firm said it has continued to win contracts across a variety of end-markets and partners, including a recently announced contract with Micro-D valued at £2.3m over three years.

The group has announced the subscription of 2,998,413 new ordinary shares of 10p each by existing shareholders at a price of 425p per share, which is a premium of 23 per cent on the closing share price on November 22.

Analyst Matthew Davis at WH Ireland said: “In what can only be seen as a sign of WANdisco’s increasing strength given the opportunity now before it (following the tie up with Microsoft), and the likely resulting confidence of major investors, the subscription has been driven and underpinned by existing shareholders.

“We continue to see fair value at (a share price of) 500p.”

David Richards, chief executive and chairman of WANdisco, said: “This year we have struck new partnerships with Databricks and Neudesic and deepened existing relationships, striking a landmark agreement to embed Fusion into Microsoft Azure.

“These strategic partnerships and the successful launch of LiveMigrator and LiveAnalytics, underpins a growing sales pipeline, all of which, gives me confidence in our prospects for this year and over the long-term.”

The company said it has good visibility into renewals and a growing pipeline of late-stage deals with strategic partners during the second half.

WANdisco said an application for the subscription shares to be admitted to trading on AIM will be made in due course. It is currently expected that settlement of all of the subscription shares and admission will take place later this week at 8.00am on or around November 29. Subscribers have undertaken not to sell their new shares for at least a year.