Valneva: 15% discount for capital increase

(CercleFinance.com) - Valneva announced on Friday the success of its capital increase of around E60m, carried out at a significant discount, which resulted in a sharp fall in its share price on the Paris Bourse.


The French vaccines specialist says it has floated a total of 23 million new ordinary shares at a price of E2.66 each, without shareholders' pre-emptive rights.

This price represents a discount of around 15% to Thursday evening's closing price.

The company explains that it plans to use the proceeds to finance the development of its clinical programs, including the Phase 3 pediatric trial and Phase 4 trials of its chikungunya vaccine, as well as the anticipated Phase 2 programs for its shigellosis and Zika virus vaccine candidates.

A portion of the proceeds will also be used to commercialize its current chikungunya vaccine, as well as to continue its preclinical research and development activities.

In a press release, Valneva believes that this new financing will give it greater flexibility to invest in its future growth, including in its Shigellosis vaccine program, for which it recently obtained an exclusive worldwide license.

The company believes that it should have the necessary resources to finance its operational activities, excluding the repayment of its debt, until such time as potential milestone and commercial revenues from its Lyme disease program enable it to operate profitably on a sustainable basis.

Given that the new shares represent 16.5% of the share capital before completion of the operation, a shareholder who held 1% of the capital before the capital increase will find himself diluted to 0.86%.

In the wake of these announcements, Valneva's share price fell over 10% on Friday morning in early trading on Euronext Paris.


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