The QuickFee Ltd (ASX: QFE) share price is tumbling lower on Friday after returning from its trading halt.
At the time of writing the professional services payment and lending solutions provider's shares are down almost 5% to 61 cents.
Why was the QuickFee share price in a trading halt?
QuickFee requested a trading halt on Thursday whilst it undertook a $17.5 million capital raising.
This morning its shares returned to action after successfully completing the institutional component of the capital raising.
QuickFee raised $15 million via a placement of shares to institutional investors at a 9.4% discount of 58 cents per new share.
Management advised that the placement was strongly supported by new and existing institutional, family office, and sophisticated investors.
It will now push ahead with its share purchase plan, which aims to raise a further $2.5 million. These funds will be raised at the lower of the placement price or a 5% discount to the five-day volume weighted average price of its shares on 12 October.
Why is QuickFee raising funds?
QuickFee launched the capital raising after announcing a partnership with buy now pay later provider Splitit Ltd (ASX: SPT).
This agreement will allow the clients of accounting and law firms in the United States and Australia to pay their fees on credit card using Splitit's instalment solution.
The CEO of QuickFee, Bruce Coombes, believes the partnership will open the door to parts of the market it would not normally service.
He said: "We are hugely excited by the new partnership with Splitit. Having already achieved strong acceptance amongst professional services firms with our online payment portal and existing lending solutions, this new interest free product allows QuickFee to capture a significantly greater share of the professional services market by providing payment plans to clients of smaller firms, by far the largest part of the market, that we would not normally service."
Commenting on the capital raising, Mr Coombes said he was very pleased with "the strong support QuickFee received from both existing shareholders and new shareholders."
He believes this is "a strong endorsement of the significant opportunity for the new interest free product being launched in partnership with Splitit."
"The funds from the Placement will allow us to add significant scale to our team for customer acquisitions, predominantly in the US, and funding for the anticipated growth of the receivables book following the launch of the interest free product," he concluded.
