Spinnaker cash shell floats with bulging board to target energy sector

Cash shell Spinnaker Opportunities has floated on the full list of the London Stock Exchange with a £1.2m fundraising to help it find opportunity in the energy and industrial sectors.

The company, which has an experienced board of ex Shell, BP and BG executives, is seeking to target a single business opportunity worth £5-30m.

The London listing saw 24m shares issued at a price 5p per share and warrants exercisable at 7.5p, with the founders and their associates investing £0.54m of the initial funds to aligns the board's interests with shareholders.

Chairman Andy Morrison, a 17-year Shell and BG veteran who has since focused on junior public companies such as Xtract Energy and Silvermere Energy, said: "We are now very much looking forward to building and assessing an inventory of opportunities in order to progress our strategy of making a single material acquisition as quickly and as effectively as possible."

Spinnaker does not have any specific acquisition under consideration at the current time, it admitted, but rather a has "an inventory of opportunities".

Having floated the board now expects to begin "substantive negotiations with possible target companies and businesses with a view to concluding an acquisition as expeditiously as possible", with any acquisition likely to be funded through the issue of Spinnaker shares to the target's vendors.

"Directors are drawing no salaries, setting a new standard in offering value to shareholders which we hope more companies will consider," observed house broker SP Angel. "Furthermore, the directors are investing £310,000 of their own money, in cash and not as sweat equity as is sometimes seen, as initial capital into the business."

"There is an option scheme over 10% of the company’s shares at the placing price of 5p per share, which means that directors and shareholders interests are closely aligned."

Other directors include Richard Liddell, former chairman of Falkland Oil & Gas and currently senior non-executive director of Sound Energy; and Tony Harpur, who has worked as a senior executive in the oil trading units of BP and Shell and is the ex CEO of an energy trading company set up by the government of Oman and Vitol.

Putting its final spin on the float, SP Angel said: "Spinnaker Opportunities PLC is a rare opportunity to back an exceptional board in the acquisition of a meaningful opportunity in the oil & gas/energy space. This is a ‘ground-floor’ type investment driven by the opportunity to acquire businesses at relatively low value within these sectors."