The Lark Distilling Co Ltd (ASX: LRK) share price is advancing on Tuesday afternoon. This comes after the whisky producer announced an update to its capital raising efforts.
At the time of writing, Lark shares are up 9.68% to $5.55 a pop. In comparison, the All Ordinaries Index(ASX: XAO) is 0.27% higher to 7,710.6 points.
What did Lark Distilling announce?
According to its release, Lark advised it has successfully completed the first tranche of its fully underwritten institutional placement.
The company received strong interest from both existing institutional shareholders and new investors. However, the overwhelming demand resulted in excess of the funds that Lark sought to raise.
As such, the first tranche sees $46.5 million collected through the issuance of roughly 9.3 million new shares. The price listed for each share is $5, representing a 1.2% discount to the closing price of $5.06 on 15 October.
The newly created shares are expected to settle on 21 October, with trading available on the following day.
Lark managing director, Geoff Bainbridge touched on the placement, saying:
We would like to thank our shareholders and partners for their strong support of the company as we execute our vision of becoming a global icon in single malt whisky. We have been gratified by the strong response to the institutional placement, with existing and new investors supporting our vision.
The second tranche, worth $6.4 million is a conditional placement as the company's directors are wishing to take part. This will involve about 1.3 million new shares based on the same terms and price as above. The placement will need to be approved by shareholders at the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 29 November.
Lastly, a Share Purchase Plan (SPP) will give the opportunity to everyday investors to participate in the equity raise. The SPP aims to raise $5 million but may be scaled back or increased depending on the results.
The SPP will open on 25 October and close on 15 November.
About the Lark share price
Over the past 12 months, Lark shares have gained more than 300%, and year-to-date trailing closely behind, up 280%.
Based on today's price, Lark presides a market capitalisation of roughly $350.23 million, with approximately 63.1 million shares on hand.
