The Goodman Group (ASX: GMG) share price fell 1% to an intraday low of $31.27 on Friday.
This followed 152,057 new shares issued through the recent Share Purchase Plan (SPP) commencing trading today.
The Goodman share price has since recovered and is currently $31.68 per share, up 0.28%.
This week we learned that the property giant managed to raise only $5.1 million in the $400 million SPP offered to retail investors.
Let's find out why.
Retail investors resoundly reject Goodman's offer
The SPP was offered to ordinary investors alongside a $4 billion institutional placement, both of which were announced on 19 February.
Both had an offer price of $33.50. That looked pretty good at the time, given it was a 6.9% discount to the last closing price of $35.98.
News of the capital raise was released to the market after Goodman shares entered a trading halt on 19 February.
The very next day, after the institutional placement's completion was announced, the Goodman share price fell steeply.
In fact, it went below the offer price to an intraday trough of $33.20.
The ASX 200 property stock continued on a downward trajectory from there, as the chart below shows.
Dilution occurred on 25 February when 119.4 million new shares issued under the institutional placement began trading.
By the time the SPP for mum and dad investors opened on 27 February, the Goodman share price was trading well below the offer price.
That day, the Goodman share price traded between $31.92 and 32.67 per share and finished the day at $31.31.
That made the SPP not so appealing to retail investors.
The SPP closed on 13 March, with the Goodman share price finishing that day's trading at $31.03 per share.
Clearly, investors felt little motivation to participate in the SPP when the market price had fallen below the offer price and stayed there.
Bear in mind that this was a really tough period for any company to raise money.
When the SPP opened, a US market correction was underway over fears that tariffs would send the world's biggest economy into recession.
A correction is where a major index falls by 10% from its most recent peak.
The Australian share market followed the US and went very close to an official correction, too.
The benchmark index fell 9.43% from its record high on 14 February to what may have been the trough last Thursday, 13 March.
So, this didn't help Goodman's cause in trying to raise an additional $400 million from retail investors during this period.
What's next?
Goodman intends to use the funds raised to further its strategy of providing essential infrastructure for the digital economy.
Group CEO Greg Goodman said:
The funds raised will enable us to optimise the opportunities we're creating over the long term, particularly through our data centre offering, and provide greater financial and operational flexibility to manage the next phase of growth.
Meantime, top broker Wilsons views Goodman shares favourably and has a buy rating on the stock.
In a recent note, the broker said:
Notwithstanding the near-term equity dilution from the raise, GMG's EPS growth outlook remains attractive, underpinned by its data centre pipeline which will benefit from strong sector tailwinds from cloud migration and AI.
We expect GMG to fund future developments with recycled capital (existing liquidity, retained earnings, equity sell-downs) and a modest amount of leverage.
Goodman share price snapshot
The Goodman share price hit a 52-week high of $39.43 on 10 December.
The ASX 200 property stock is up 2.7% over the past 12 months.
