IWG plc shares (LON:IWG) soared on Thursday following the successful raising of £320m to fund expansions and increase efficiency.

IWG placed shares at 239p representing a 8.1% discount to the mid price closing of 260.2p on 27th March

IWG shares were up over 14% to 298p at lunch time on Thursday, after touching highs of 320p earlier in the session.

Although the offer was largely met by institutions, IWG followed in the footsteps of Compass Group and made the offer open to retail investors through PrimaryBid.

PrimaryBid

Such offers had previously been reserved for institutional investors but PrimaryBid’s platform now allows retail clients to invest alongside larger investors.

The PrimaryBid retail offer accounted for roughly 15.4% of the overall offer.

PrimaryBid have traditionally been sole facilitators of smaller offers from listed companies but have recently provided retail investors with access to FTSE 350 secondary offerings.

IWG CEO Mark Dixon was heavily involved in the placing with a subscription of £91.3 million, representing approximately 28.53% of the total offer.

Working from home

The fund raise set out to provide IWG with capital to pursue expansion in the social distancing environment and seek out M&A opportunities.

IWG had rebranded from Regus in recent years to reflect their push into co-working and more flexible workspace environments.

However, COVID-19 now throws up new challenge and opportunities for the company who are operating in a market that has seen capacity grow sharply in recent years but now has to contend with working from home. If the working from home trend takes hold after the COVID-19 social distance restrictions lift, IWG now has a war chest to target new opportunities in flexible working.

As part of the expansion into new workplace trends, IWG are launching a specific working from home product.

Investec, Barclays and HSBC Bank acted as joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners for the placing.