Afterpay raising $800m, founders sell down

E-commerce provider Afterpay is raising $800 million in a share sale as it looks to invest in growing sales and expand into new markets.

The capital raising by the buy now, pay later service will comprise of an institutional placement worth $650m and another $150m through a share purchase plan for retail shareholders.

The institutional placement will have a floor price of $61.75, a 9.2 per cent discount to Monday’s closing price. The final pricing will be determined in the bookbuild.

Afterpay shares last week hit a record high of $70 each, and on Monday closed at $68.

Shares in the company have been placed in a trading halt pending the completion of the institutional sale.

“Given the ongoing impacts from COVID-19 and the uncertain global economic conditions, we have continued to focus on preserving capital and maintaining a strong balance sheet,” chief executive Anthony Eisen said.

Afterpay’s co-founders, Mr Eisen and Nicholas Molnar, will simultaneously sell 2.05 million shares each, representing 10 per cent of their respective holdings in the company.

The two co-founders will remain Afterpay’s largest shareholders holding about 18.4 million shares each.

The company also outlined its trading performance, with underlying sales of $3.8 billion in in the June quarter, a jump of 127 per cent from a year ago.

The company said this was its highest quarterly performance ever, and reflected the accelerating shift to e-commerce spending since the impacts of COVID-19 emerged globally.

That has lifted underlying sales for the full year to $11.1b, more than double from FY19.

The company had 9.9 million active customers at the end of FY20, including 5.6 million in the US and one million in the UK

AAP