Sygnus Credit Investments (SCI), one of the few companies to go to market in 2020 with an additional public offering (APO), exceeded its target in subscription by more than US$5 million when it successfully closed on December 30.

The SCI APO, which was targeted to raise US$22 million or J$3.3 billion, raised approximately US$27.58 million (J$3.94 billion) for both share classes.

The company received a total of 3,757 subscriptions from Jamaicans and the wider Caribbean region with more than 50 per cent from institutional investors.

SCI previously raised capital of US$16 million in a private placement in 2017, followed by a record breaking initial public offering (IPO) of US$22 million in 2018. Its highly successful raise of US$27.58 million in December 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, is even more significant as it speaks to the solid track record of SCI.

“Raising this level of capital for private credit under these market conditions, signals the continued growth of the private credit market within the region. We are excited about the progress of SCI over the last three years and its commitment to establish private credit as a mainstream source of capital in the Caribbean financial service ecosystem,” said Berisford Grey, co-founder and president of Sygnus.

The APO, which opened to the public on Friday, December 18, 2020, originally offered up to 196,372,431 ordinary shares to the public at a cost of US$0.140 per US$ ordinary share and J$16.30 per J$ ordinary share.

In light of the oversubscription, SCI has exercised the right to upsize the invitation to 240,887,900 new ordinary shares, reflecting a 54 per cent upsize to the maximum allowed by the prospectus dated December 11, 2020. 

“We are extremely pleased with the strong support from institutional and retail investors and particularly impressed with the number of new investors to take the opportunity to participate in this APO and the support from medium-sized firms financed by SCI. With this raise we move into 2021 very confident about executing the strategy of hitting the US$100 million in total portfolio investments within the stated timelines.

 “We would also like to take the opportunity to thank our lead brokers NCB Capital Markets and Sagicor Investments Ltd as well as our selling agents that helped to make the SCI APO a tremendous success. We have even received support from a number of portfolio companies buying shares into SCI which speaks to the partnership that SCI has established over the last 3.5 years. We pride ourselves on this approach of partnership that SCI continues to bring to the fore in both being a source of financing as well as a source of investing for companies and individuals,” stated Grey.