Digital and creative company intends to improve working capital and restructure debt

 iCreate has announced its intentions to go to the market to raise approximately $55 million in capital.

The company disclosed that it will be a combination of debt and equity, with some debt conversion, fresh capital and restructuring of some of its debt commitments. The company said that its intentions at this point are to have a stronger balance sheet while diversifying operations and pivoting into its Creative City Commercial Real Estate project.

“iCreate has been making progress in reducing losses and adjusting its operations to survive in this COVID-19 pandemic. In our 2020 audited financial statement, we showed revenue growth of 26.4 per cent and a 36.8 per cent improvement in our Net Loss position, coming from -$46m, down to -$29.1m”, said Tyrone Wilson, Founder, President & CEO at iCreate Limited. 

“We are proud of the results, especially in a pandemic where 50 per cent of our pre-pandemic revenues previously earned, we could no longer expect because of the inability to conduct these practical face-to-face training programmes such as digital video production and photography. That division has been completely wiped out.”

iCreate said that the company is improving and injecting much-needed cash will help to push the progress along faster.

The company said the rights issue will focus on the following:

• Restructuring of iCreate Limited’s bond, which is currently at 12.7 per cent with principal payments looming.
• Working capital to enable the company to meet its short term obligations.
• Conversion of a portion of debt to equity.
• Marketing support to reach a wider audience in its business development efforts.

The company continues to be bullish about the digital industry as its growth area in terms of training. So far this year, iCreate has executed the NCB Foundation Level-Up Training, in addition to executing training for a number of organisations such as the GraceKennedy Group, the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) & Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB).

As part of its training partnership with the NCB Foundation, the company also trained the largest cohort (345) of individuals in Software Development & Cybersecurity, as part of a program that saw iCreate train some 1,500 students in digital fields.

The institute has seen significant growth in educational content production, which accounts for 15 per cent of total revenues since the loss of face to face classes. It has recently completed projects in this space with Heart Trust and One on One Educational Services to create digital content for its students, and has also created digital content in the past for Digicel in relation to digital transformation and online content development.

Given the digital direction of Jamaica and the wider world, iCreate Limited sees this as a growing market the company is “well-positioned to take advantage of” the Tyrone Wilson-led entity is excited at the prospects ahead for the training institute.

“We are currently in discussions with a couple brokers and arrangers to get the process started and are confident we will be able to execute this rights issue. We expect to complete it by the end of this year,” Wilson explained further.

iCreate (listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, Junior Market)  is a digital and creative company 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.

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