Lombard Bank to issue new shares

Lombard Bank announced Monday that the Board of Directors has submitted an application for authorisation for admissibility to Listing to the Malta Financial Services Authority requesting approval of a prospectus in relation to a 2-for-3 rights issue of new ordinary shares to be admitted to listing and trading on the Official List of the Malta Stock Exchange and which shall form part of the same class, have equal rights as, and rank pari passu with, the Bank’s existing shares.

In terms of the Prospectus and subject to regulatory approval, the Rights Issue will first be offered on a pre-emptive basis to shareholders appearing on the Bank’s register of members held at the Central Securities Depository of the Malta Stock Exchange as at the close of trading on 19 September 2023, the last trading date being 15 September 2023, the bank said in a notice on the Malta Stock Exchange.

Shareholders eligible for the Rights Issue shall be entitled to subscribe to two (2) new ordinary shares for every three (3) ordinary shares held as at the Record Date (the ‘Proportionate Entitlement’), at a price of €0.75 (seventy-five Euro cents) per share (the ‘Offer Price’). Any Proportionate Entitlement or part thereof which is neither accepted nor validly assigned by Shareholders eligible for the Rights Issue shall constitute lapsed rights.

An amount of new ordinary shares equivalent to the number of lapsed rights (the ‘Excess Shares’) shall be first made available to those Shareholders eligible for the Rights Issue who would have accepted their Proportionate Entitlement in full and applied for Excess Shares. Thereafter, the remaining Excess Shares, if any, shall be made available for subscription to employees of the Bank and its subsidiaries, the Bank’s directors and MaltaPost p.l.c. shareholders (together, the ‘Preferred Applicants’) and to the general public, in that order of preference.

The Rights Issue will allow for further strengthening of the Bank’s capital base both for regulatory purposes as well as for the implementation of the Bank’s strategy for growth. This is expected to result in increased profits and, subject to business requirements and regulatory approval, dividend distributions of circa one third of annual profits. The Offer Price of €0.75 per share represents a circa 20% discount to the price of €0.93 which, to date, is the Trade-Weighted Average Price of the Bank’s shares over the last six months.

It also represents a discount of over 50% to the Net Asset Value of the Bank’s shares, which as at 30 June 2023 stood at €1.51 per share. 1. Subject to regulatory approval, further information on the Rights Issue shall be provided in the Prospectus (once published on the Bank’s website), in further Company Announcements, as well as in information meetings to which shareholders as well as authorised financial intermediaries shall be invited.

The Rights Issue will allow for further strengthening of the Bank’s capital base both for regulatory purposes as well as for the implementation of the Bank’s strategy for growth, the bank said. This is expected to result in increased profits and, subject to business requirements and regulatory approval, dividend distributions of circa one third of annual profits.

The Offer Price of €0.75 per share represents a circa 20% discount to the price of €0.93 which, to date, is the Trade-Weighted Average Price of the Bank’s shares over the last six months. It also represents a discount of over 50% to the Net Asset Value of the Bank’s shares, which as at 30 June 2023 stood at €1.51 per share.