Director dealings: Pennant CEO sells two thirds alongside placing

Pennant International chief executive Chris Snook has sold more than two thirds of his stake in the company alongside the support service company's £3.56m fundraising.

Pennant, which feels it would be prudent to raise extra working capital in order to more easily complete a pair of Middle Eastern contracts worth a combined £13m, has agreed to definitely place £1.38m worth of shares at 55p with institutional shareholders and, conditional upon investor approval, plans place £2.18m worth at the same price.

Due to the oversubscribed nature of these placings, Snook sold 1m of his shares at 55p.

He will be left with 487,000 shares, which represents 1.8% of Pennant's existing voting shares and will represent 1.5% should both placings be completed.

Justifying the need for the issues of new shares, Pennant pointed out that it has not raised equity since 2001 and the directors believe "an equity fundraising will not only address the company's working capital requirements but will facilitate the introduction of new institutional investors, which in turn should enhance the market profile and investor interest in the company".

AIM-listed Pennant, which supplies logistic support solutions, products and services, principally to the defence, rail, aerospace and naval sectors and to government departments, recently almost doubled the size of its potential production capacity in order to deal with the additional design, development and production capacity resulting from a record order book.

In June, Pennant said the order book stood at more than £45m, with delivery currently scheduled as to £17m in the current financial year, £18m in 2017 and £10m in 2018.

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