John Laing Infrastructure raises £242m for hospital investment
JOHN Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF), the FTSE 250-listed investment fund, yesterday raised a record £242m from investors to help fund a hospital spending spree.
The company said the share offering at 111p was oversubscribed.
It will use £103m of the proceeds to take stakes in two medical facilities – North Staffordshire Hospital and Kelowna and Vernon Hospital in Canada – and a school building programme, Barnsley BSF.
The rest will be used to repay a debt facility, which is currently £123.4m drawn.
The price was at a six per cent premium to its net asset value price, which is the equivalent of a share price for listed fund vehicles. The raise is a record for the company.
Chairman Paul Lester said the raise “reflects the ongoing success of our low risk, predictable yield model, as well as the continued popularity of the listed infrastructure sector as an asset class”.
Numis estimates about £675m has been raised so far this year by listed infrastructure funds through secondary issues – all of which have been oversubscribed.
John Laing was responsible for building Coventry Cathedral, which is grade I listed.
ADVISERS JOHN LAING INFRASTRUCTURE FUND
CHRIS NICHOLLS
JP MORGAN CAZENOVE
JP Morgan Cazenove helped lead the share placing and follows on from its long standing relationship with the company. Yesterday’s £243m secondary raising was the sixth time JP Morgan Cazenove has raised money for JLIF in the past three years.
Leading the team was executive director Chris Nicholls, who works in the corporate finance team and has been at the bank since 2007.
Cambridge University-educated Nicholls has previously worked as an executive director at Lehman Brothers and as an investment banking executive at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell.
He also worked in the audit and business advisory department at accountants Arthur Andersen. Most recently Nicholls has worked on a number of big fund raisings, including the Ophir Energy placing and rights issue in March which raised £550m.
He also worked on a £220m IPO for HellermannTyton in April and the further £120m sell down last week by Doughty Hanson of half of its remaining stake in HellermannTyton.
Edward Gibson-Watt, who is also executive director of corporate finance at the bank, also worked on the placing. He was previously an associate at Ernst & Young.