Rubicon raises £5.5m in share placing

Johannesburg - Lonrho's [JSE:LAF] recently listed aviation division‚ Rubicon Diversified Investments‚ has raised £5.5m by way of a placing of 137.5 million new ordinary shares at 4 pence per share with institutional and corporate investors‚ it said Wednesday.

The proceeds will be used to further Rubicon's proposed launch of

FastJet in Africa and for general working capital purposes.

Application has been made for the placing shares to be admitted to trading on AIM‚ which is expected to occur on 2 August.

The placing shares represent approximately 9.5% of the issued ordinary share capital of Rubicon as enlarged by the placing.

Following admission‚ Lonrho's interest in Rubicon will be reduced from 74.9% to 67.6% of Rubicon's issued ordinary share capital.

Rubicon has also signed Heads of Terms with Henderson Global Investors' subsidiary‚ Darwin Strategic Limited for the provision of a £5m Equity Financing Facility (EFF) over a period of 36 months.

Darwin is a majority owned subsidiary of Henderson Global Investors' Alphagen Volantis fund. A further announcement will be made describing the terms of the EFF in more detail‚ once the final agreement has been entered into.

Rubicon CEO Ed Winter commented: "The additional funding will strengthen Rubicon´s balance sheet and should increase the ability to lease aircraft on better commercial terms and assist with the roll-out of the Airbus A319 fleet in Africa. The first A319 is scheduled for delivery in October."