Durrant Pate/Contributor

Digital and creative company iCreate is to consider a rights issue at its next board meeting scheduled for next Thursday (May 19).

The board is “meeting to consider and, if thought fit, recommend to the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting to be convened, certain resolutions to facilitate raising additional equity investment by way of a rights issue”.

The consideration of the rights issue is part of a wider initiative by iCreate to improve the company’s working capital and debt restructuring.

This includes the conversion of loans from Dequity Capital Management Limited and Kintyre Holdings Limited to equity. iCreate announced back in October last year plans to go to the capital market to raise approximately J$55 million in fresh capital to strengthen its balance sheet while diversifying operations and pivoting into its Creative City Commercial Real Estate project.

The fresh capital is to come from a combination of debt and equity, with some debt conversion, fresh capital and restructuring of some of its debt commitments. iCreate has been making progress in reducing losses and adjusting its operations to survive in this COVID-19 pandemic.

iCreate rebounding from losses

In fact, the company is rebounding from the net loss of J$32.26 million posted last year to eke out a modest profit during the first quarter of this year. For the three months ended March 31, 2022, iCreate made net profit of J$10.11 million relative to J$1.91 million for comparable period in 2021.

Revenues for the first quarter amounted to J$46.39 million, representing a massive jump of 451 per cent, up from the J$8.42 million reported a year prior.

The management of the Jamaican creative company reports that the “revenue growth is attributable to the various initiatives announced by the company at its recent annual general meeting around the plan to deliver our 2-to-1 financial strategy, which is to deliver US$2 million in revenues and US$1 million in profits”.

iCreate, which is listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange Junior Market, is aimed at fueling the growth of the creative economy. It does this by training individuals and by establishing well-needed companies to fill the gap in the business arena.

The company is divided into two divisions, iCreate Institute, which is its core business and Opportunity Ventures, which is its corporate venture capital arm, focused on building complementary businesses.