Clabo bet on the debt market to expand in China. The company, based in Jesi, a city located in Marche (italian region), listed on AIM and specialized in furniture for the catering (among the customers Apple, Google and even the White House), approved the issuance of a bond with a maximum amount of EUR 6,000,000 (nominal amount), which expires on 2021, to be issued in two or more tranches by the end of December 2017. The bond will be listed on EXTRAMOT PRO market. This was communicated in a statement (see the press release) by the company chaired by Pierluigi Bocchini specifying that in connection with the issuance of the first tranche of the bond, Clabo has ongoing negotiations with one of the major Italian institutional investor. The operation is part of the group’s expansion strategy in the Asian market, characterized by high growth rates in its sector. The proceeds from the placement of the bonds will be used exclusively to finance its general cash needs but in particular for the acquisition of a business unit of Easy Best Group, active in China in the production of display cases for ice cream, with Clabo which has already signed a non-binding exclusive agreement. Mr. Bocchini said:“The issue of the bond gives a tremendous acceleration to the plane of Clabo development in Asia. We can indeed reach, with more than a year ahead, the growth target that we set in our business plan”. Simest will invest in the acquisition of the unit of Easy Best Group in China and, at the and of the day, it will have the 49% of the business. The bond, issued at par and listed on ExtraMOT Pro, will be composed of 60 parts, each of 100 thousand euros of face value, maturing in 2021 with a semi-annual coupon of 6% and the capital issued will be refunded at a rate of 25% per year. Clabo was looking to the Stock Exchange since 2008. The project was abandoned after the great economic crisis, which forced the company to launch a restructuring and reorganization process, completed in December 2009 with the signing of the agreement with the banking system for the debt restructuring. The company ended the 2015 fiscal year with pro forma revenues of EUR 34.91 million, a decrease compared to 35.83 million achieved in the previous year. Consolidated net profit amounted to 1.6 million euro. At the end of 2015, the pro forma net debt was down to 17.8 million euro, from 22.12 million earlier in the same year.
