REAL estate giant Mirvac has attempted to bolster its balance sheet following redundancies and trading halts with a string of new shares in the property trusts sector.
Yesterday the Mirvac Group announced the successful completion of a $417 million institutional capital raising. It’s hoping to raise a further $83 million in a retail entitlement offer, which was expected to open as Architecture & Design went to press.
The initiative will take the group’s offering to the equivalent of $500 million in shares. “In these uncertain and volatile markets the board and management have determined that it is prudent to pro-actively undertake a number of initiatives to strengthen Mirvac’s balance sheet,” managing director of Mirvac, Nicholas Collishaw, said. Collishaw, who took up the post four months ago, requested a trading halt last week because of the “uncertain and volatile markets”.
Mirvac has downgraded its earning guidance for the current financial year to 13.4c per stapled security, a drop from the July guidance of 23c to 25c. The 98.5c security price last week was a slump on the $2.05 price two weeks ago. Mirvac also plans to sack more staff after another recent 160 redundancies, said the Australian Financial Review.
