Australian Vintage has launched an equity raising of up to $19.9 million to improve liquidity as it anticipates near-term conditions to remain challenging.
The non-underwritten equity raising comes at a fixed price of 20 cents per share, a 42 per cent discount to the closing price of $0.345 on May 22.
Australian Vintage noted that it anticipates liquidity requirements to be elevated across July to October.
Moreover, Australian Vintage is still keen to pursue mergers with other players after Accolade Wines stopped pursuing merger discussions with the company last May.
“AVG continues to believe sector consolidation is logical and is ready to participate,” said the winemaker.
Australian Vintage forecasts underlying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation to range from $29 million to $31 million for the fiscal year, up 11 per cent from the prior fiscal year. Sales are estimated to be between $257 million and 261 million.
The company also expects a $38 million impairment charge to be recorded against goodwill during the year.
Meanwhile, the company appointed John Davies as interim chair, succeeding chairman Richard Davis who is set to retire from the board at completion of the equity raise.
