Aston Martin Lagonda has raised £207m in new equity and high-cost debt as the luxury carmaker seeks funding to see it through the slump in revenues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The company on Friday issued new shares worth £152m, after earlier saying it aimed to raise up to £190m from investors in the third major change to its financing this year.
Aston Martin will also draw down about $68m (£55m) of borrowing, due to be repaid in 2022, at an expensive 12% interest rate. The borrowing terms were agreed in September, before billionaire Lawrence Stroll effectively took control of the company just as the coronavirus pandemic began.
The carmaker’s shares fell by as much as a fifth on Friday to hit a low of 49p after the company revealed it had sold the shares for 50p each, although by late trading the stock has recovered slightly to 52p. Aston Martin floated in October 2018 at £19 per share.
The pandemic added to the carmaker’s struggles, forcing dealerships around the world to shut and choking off revenues. The company lost £119m in the first quarter, and on Friday it said sales would be lower in the second quarter. More than 90% of its dealership network has now reopened, Aston Martin said.
Since taking control and sacking former chief executive Andy Palmer, Stroll has made it his priority to reduce the number of cars stuck at dealers to try to retain Aston Martin’s elite branding, as well as delivering the first of its new DBX SUVs to customers. New chief executive Tobias Moers, the boss of Mercedes-Benz’s performance division, will take over on 1 August.
Aston Martin on Friday said it had reduced dealer stock by 617 cars. It will make the first deliveries of the DBX, which was crucial to its pre-pandemic expansion plans, in July.
Stroll, who has taken the executive chairman role, said: “We are making very good progress on my first priority, the rebalancing of supply and demand and reducing dealer stock as we reset the business and restore exclusivity. We have also successfully completed all test production trials for DBX and have scaled up [the St Athan DBX factory] for full production.”
Stroll’s investment consortium, which includes British digger-maker JCB, bought shares worth £38m in the latest fundraising, while Italian investors InvestIndustrial injected £11.8m.
The carmaker on Friday also said it had received approval for a £20m loan from the government-backed coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme and that it was in talks for another £50m of trade financing.
