ExpreS 2 ion secures SEK 8 million in bridge financing to facilitate further growth
ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB (“ExpreS2ion”) announces that the Company is increasing its working capital by securing a combination of a bridge loan and a loan facility of up to SEK 8 million in total. This will enable ExpreS2ion to further expand its business activities in line with the growth numbers reported for Q1 and Q2 2019. The bridge financing is provided by Modelio Equity AB (publ), an investment company and shareholder in ExpreS2ion.
Further information on the bridge financing
The bridge financing consists of two parts; a loan of SEK 5 million and a loan facility of up to SEK 3 million. It is structured as follows:
- ExpreS2ion will receive the bridge loan of SEK 5 million in total through an up-front payment of SEK 3 million and a further payment of SEK 2 million on request during the period from November 15th to December 30th, 2019. Each of the two payments will be charged with a 5% fee. The loan has a total monthly interest of 1.5 %. The loan can be repaid at any time until May 31st, 2020 at the latest.
- The loan facility amounts to SEK 3 million in total. It will be activated when ExpreS2ion’s share price reaches 5.5 SEK per share. For this facility, the Company is charged with an upfront fee of 2 %, a further fee of 1 % when the Company’s share price reaches 5.5 SEK per share and an activation fee of 2 %.
The loan agreement for both the loan and the loan facility enables the lender to convert the combined loan into shares in ExpreS2ion at a 10 % discount compared to the Volume-Weighted Average Price (VWAP) of the last 15 trading days prior to the lender’s decision to convert the combined loan. A conversion into shares is limited by the authorisation granted to ExpreS2ion’s Board of Directors from the Annual General Meeting on May 23rd, 2019 to be able to conduct one or several share issues corresponding to an increase in share capital of no more than 10 % based on the total share capital of the Company at the time of the Annual General Meeting 2019. No less than 1 million SEK of the loan can be converted into shares. The lender is allowed a maximum of three such conversions. The lender may not convert the loan into shares if ExpreS2ion’s VWAP share price is below 5.0 SEK per share. Throughout the duration of the loan, the Company has the right to repay the loan, in whole or in part, at any time. Upon such notice from ExpreS2ion, the lender has 48 hours to decide whether the repayment shall be made in shares or in cash.
Motivation for the bridge financing
Following a targeted expansion of its discovery platform over the past three years, including the development of AdaptVac’s VLP platform, ExpreS2ion is experiencing an increased interest in and a demand for its platform and services from customers, including entities in charge of large development projects. However, due to the time from initiation and activation of project related costs to actual delivery and customer payments, the Company needs to increase its working capital to be able to sustain this expansion phase. To facilitate this, the Company has entered into a bridge financing agreement with an existing shareholder. This financing will enable the Company to enter into additional attractive agreements with large customers as well as to pursue additional interesting opportunities in the market. The reason for the Company to deviate from the shareholders' preferential rights when securing this bridge financing is to obtain a time- and cost-effective financing, on terms which the Board deems as fair and corresponding to market standard.
“We are pleased to receive this financial support from a shareholder at a time when our increased activity level could become a limiting factor for the continued expansion of our business activities. The additional working capital provided by this bridge financing will ensure that we can continue to deliver strong growth numbers as reported in recent quarters”, says ExpreS2ion’s CEO Dr. Steen Klysner.
“We are pleased to be able to offer ExpreS2ion a very flexible financing solution, which will assist the Company when entering this interesting phase of continued development and commercialisation. We have been following ExpreS2ion since its listing and especially in 2019. A lot of positive things has happened during this year, and we look forward to continuing to follow and support the Company. Additionally, we hope that this financing solution will facilitate a market focus on ExpreS2ion’s business activities and provide reassurance around the financial position”, says Oliver Molse, CEO of Modelio Equity AB (publ), an investment company based in Stockholm.
Certified Adviser
Svensk Kapitalmarknadsgranskning AB
Telephone: +46 70 755 95 51
E-mail: ca@skmg.se
For further information about ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB, please contact:
Dr. Steen Klysner, CEO
Telephone: +45 2062 9908
E-mail: sk@expres2ionbio.com
This press release contains information that ExpreS2ion is obligated to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication through the agency of the contact person set out above on October 16, 2019.
About ExpreS2ion
ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies ApS is a fully owned Danish subsidiary of ExpreS2ion Biotech Holding AB with company register number 559033-3729. The subsidiary has developed a unique proprietary platform technology, ExpreS2, that can be used for fast and efficient preclinical and clinical development as well as robust production of complex proteins for new vaccines and diagnostics. Since the company was founded in 2010, it has produced more than 300 proteins and 40 virus-like particles (VLPs) in collaboration with leading research institutions and companies, demonstrating superior efficiency and success rates. In addition, ExpreS2ion develops novel VLP based vaccines through the joint venture AdaptVac ApS, which was founded in 2017. For additional information, please visit www.expres2ionbio.com and www.adaptvac.com.
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