Lifesafe Holdings PLC on Thursday said it had raised £400,000 through a placing and subscription of 2.5 million new shares.

The £400,000 was raised through the placing of around 2.3 million new shares and a subscription of a further 187,500. These grossed proceeds of £370,000 and £30,000, respectively.

Both the placing and subscription were at a price of 16 pence per share, representing around a 22% discount to the group’s closing price of 20.5 pence on Wednesday.

Following the announcement, shares in the Wickford-based fire safety technology business were down 22% at 16.00 pence each in London at midday on Thursday.

The placing, for which WH Ireland Ltd acted as broker, is being conducted in two tranches, with the initial tranche being issued on December 29 and the second on January 16.

The first tranche of 1.7 million shares are expected to be admitted to trading on the AIM market around December 29, the same expected date as the subscription shares. The second tranche of around 583,000 shares are expected for trading on January 16.

Lifesafe said it will use the proceeds to finance a shortfall in working capital caused by its poor performance in 2023, as well as the additional resources required for new wholesale and industrial products.

In a November trading update, the group announced that its performance had suffered from increased advertising and logistics costs. While it reported a year-on-year revenue increase of 62% to £5.4 million, it predicted underlying losses in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £1.3 million to £1.5 million for the full year.

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