Company Announcement - Ascendis Health is pleased to announce that it has successfully raised, in under 10 days, almost R500 million through a combination of a R411 million primary issue of Ascendis shares and a secondary placement of almost R86 million that was facilitated by Coast2Coast selling a small portion (approximately 4%) of its holding in Ascendis. The purpose of the capital raise was to fund the acquisition of the medical devices company, Scientific Group Diagnostics, increase liquitdity via a widened shareholder base and to strengthen its balance sheet by reducing short term borrowings.

The capital raise was concluded at a price of R15.00 per Ascendis Share, representing a 7% discount on the 30-day volume weighted average price of R16.14 and the R411 million primary placement will result in the issue of 27.4 million new Ascendis shares. Ascendis CEO, Dr Karsten Wellner comments,” This capital raise was very well supported and we received more capital offers than we required. This raise also enabled the entry of over 20 new institutional asset managers as well as a good spread of private clients via various wealth managers.  The additional capital will be used to fund the SG acquisition and pay down our short term debt facilities, which can be re-drawn whenever the right organic or acquisitive opportunities arise. The R411 million issue reduces our debt equity ratio to below 50%.” The recent SG acquisition makes Ascendis medical devices division (“Ascendis Medical”) the second largest medical device company in South Africa.  The broad product range and service capabilities allows Ascendis to provide a much larger share of the hospitals wallet.  It also allows Ascendis Medical to provide turnkey solutions to kit out entire new hospitals and clinics equipment needs, with limited buy in, of around 30% from other suppliers. 

Ascendis has also established an asset finance solution with two leading banks to provide financing packages for these turnkey projects. SG has been growing strongly with annual revenue growth of almost 15% over the preceding four years. The company is also in the running for a large part of a five-year, R100 million national contract with significant revenue opportunities that could further enhance the reported 8cps (12% increase) in Ascendis’s headline earnings. Ascendis Medical and has been an important driver of growth for Ascendis, via the established platform of Surgical Innovations and the integration of Respiratory Care Africa and SG. Collectively, these businesses have positioned Ascendis Medical as a leading provider of specialised, high-end medical products and service centre and well as turnkey solutions to private and public hospitals and clinics, and medical professionals in the Southern African primary health care markets.

Dr Wellner concludes, “The manner in which the market has supported this capital raise is a clear indication of the continued confidence in our focussed high growth strategy, and we are also looking in future to introduce international shareholders after a recent international roadshow received significant interest from foreign investors in our company.”