Smart Telecom has reported increased losses for the first half of the year and announced plans to raise €30m through a share placing.
Smart's pre-tax losses were €11.2m, up from €4.4m in the same period a year earlier. The company's costs doubled as it expanded its marketing operations to support increased activity. Turnover jumped from €9m to €23.7m.
The new shares will be placed with a small number of investors at a price of 22p, a premium of 7% on yesterday's closing share price.
Smart is also to exercise its option to buy out the remaining 90% of Broadband Communications, which operates a metropolitan area network (MAN) in Dublin, for €11.5m in shares. Two of Broadband Communications' owners, Alan Murtagh and Fergal Murtagh, will join Smart's board.
The other, Brendan Murtagh, who is also a shareholder in Smart, has agreed to underwrite Smart's share placing.
Smart earlier this year raised a €20m loan note facility to facilitate investment in broadband, but says it has been able to draw down only half of this, and has blamed Eircom for this. The company has begun legal action against Eircom over access to its network.
Smart says the number of voice customers almost doubled since the same period last year, while it has 2,900 residential broadband users.
The company recently applied, in association with Huawei Technologies, for the remaining Irish third generation mobile phone licence. It had earlier withdrawn its offer to acquire Meteor.
