17 January 2022 - A Slow Start to the New Year

Blink and you might miss it, 2021 has wrapped up and we are sailing into 2022 at full speed ahead.

The holiday season wrapped up succinctly and as we return to the capital markets to look back at the first 2 weeks of January, it's clear to see that companies are significantly less active in the transition in to this year

This is fairly typical as companies and investors alike shake off the effects of their holiday period and resume looking into the capital markets once again. Normally the start of January is an indicator as to how the rest of the month will go so it's likely that capital raising activity will remain somewhat subdued for this early time period.

It's also worth acknowledging the ongoing effect of the COVID-19 pandemic as Australia battles through its newest variant, Omicron, and the subsequent effects on our society and economy. When combined with global inflation fears and interest rate uncertainty, it's certainly not unreasonable to see investors and companies pulling back on activity to gauge macroeconomic conditions.

Only 3 companies, all from different sectors, raised via placements across the market. Placements were discounted at an average of 12.45% and the total funds raised were $6.9m overall.

Technology always makes an interesting sector to watch and today is no different as we provide a review of the sole placement in that sector, which saw a discount of 0% but was oversubscribed nonetheless.

Rent.com.au Limited (ASX:RNT) made for an interesting capital raise last week as it raised $2.5m via an institutional placement on the market. The book was well subscribed with an initial target of $2m before closing at $2.5m, despite shares being issued at no discount.

Funds are being used to accelerate the transformation of the renting experience with several key outlays.

• Increased marketing for RentPay

• Increasing marketing for the core Rent.com.au business

• New features and functionalities for RentPay

90 Days Post Placement Performance

Let's have a look back into capital raises from the end of August 2021, to see how companies have performed post placement, both good and bad. There were 13 placements in the last week of August 2021, but there was a clear winner when it came to post placement performance.

While Norwest Energy NL (ASX:NWE) updates investors on operations and drilling in its gas discovery well, it's stock price has drilled in the opposite direction with a 212.5% rise in the 90 days post placement.

We've summarised the 6 best and worst performing placements from the end of August below.

Check out our Past Capital Raises page for more information on past transactions. If you want more information on Fresh Equities and how we work, feel free to contact our team at clients@freshequities