The rights issue was not offered to offshore shareholders. Smaller New Zealand-based shareholders who had not wanted to take up their rights let them lapse into the book build, rather than selling them on market during the rights trading, she said. That was largely because with small share parcels it was not worth paying brokerage fees to sell them. However, certain shareholders received a premium of 25 cents for shares sold in the book build process, which was strongly bid and reached $3.80 per share.
"It's seen as a fair mechanism delivering back value to those who don't participate," said Ms Martin. A similar approach was used by Deutsche Craigs for the Contact Energy and Argosy Property rights issues, she said.
Mr Craig said when the issue was announced that Comvita's growth and its acquisition and infrastructure investments over the past five years had largely been funded from operating cash flows, long and short term borrowing and the strategic investment made by Derma Sciences of $8.9 million made in September 2013.
The company also required increased working capital during the New Zealand spring due to the seasonal nature of the honey harvest, he said.
"This is because we must invest in inventory and beekeeping processes prior to our large northern hemisphere selling period for a significant proportion of our product range."
The capital raising would help address those issues.
