UK - BlueGem invests £15m into Panmure

The 130-year old company, which announced a pre-tax loss for the 2008/9 financial year of £9.2m pounds, is raising more than £17m through the issue of 72 million new shares priced at 24p per share - a 29% discount to the closing price yesterday. Following the confirmation of the investment shares were up by around 4.4% at around 37p, though this is still some way short of its peak in mid-2007 of more than 180p.

BlueGem founder Marco Capello has hinted that Panmure, which was forced to cut its workforce by 18% in 2008, could use some of the new capital to bring in new staff, particularly targeting bankers that have recently been made unemployed. The company is also expected to seek expansion into new business areas.

This is BlueGem's second investment in 2009, following the acquisition of a minority stake in Italian tyre distributor Fintyre in February as part of a capital increase. The group controls a EUR 200m fund that held a final close in May 2007, and has completed four investments to date. It targets growth capital and buyout investments in companies based in both Italy and the UK with enterprise values of up to EUR 200m.

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• Topics
• Expansion
• UK / Ireland