Helphire to raise £45m, CEO retires

LONDON (ShareCast) - Helphire announced that its founder Mark Jackson is to step down as chief executive and said that it plans to raise £45m to reduce its reliance on debt finance.

Cenkos Securities (LSE: CNKS.L) has conditionally placed 40,871,027 new shares at 110p each with a number of existing institutional investors. The issue price represents a premium of 8.9% to yesterday's closing mid- market price of 101p.

Shareholders will also be offered the opportunity to subscribe for the shares under the open offer, the group added.

The accident management group said Jackson will remain with the company until a successor is appointed and will assist in handing over to the in-coming chief executive. A process to find his successor is underway, the group said.

David Lindsay, whose role as finance director was assumed by Mark Adams with effect from 1 April, also intends to leave the company with immediate effect.

Helphire said earlier this week that despite more challenging economic conditions, it expects full year results to be in line with market expectations.

The group said it has continued to make satisfactory progress but on a more cautionary note, it warned that, "if the economic environment remains challenging in the near future and fuel prices remain high, motoring activity and therefore growth in the use of credit hire may slow."

Source: http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/080709/214/i2yz5.html