Waterford Wedgwood shareholders today approved plans to raise €200m to fund a new cost-cutting plan, and heard that the luxury goods group is confident of returning to profitability this year.
The company is planning to raise €100m through an offering of cumulative convertible preference shares to fund a new restructuring programme and new marketing initiatives.
Shareholders today also gave the company approval to raise an additional $100m in preference shares on the same terms as the current offer at some point in the future.
CEO Peter Cameron, confirmed today that the group remains confident of restoring positive earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for the year ended March 2007, with an improvement of at least €30m on 2005.
Last month the the group announced the proposed €100m fundraising where each existing shareholder will be entitled to purchase one preference share for every 535 ordinary shares they already own.
Under the terms of the offer the price of each preference share will be €10, and all preference shareholders will also receive warrants on the basis of 57 warrants for every preference share subscribed.
For the nine months to the end of December 2006 Waterford Wedgwood sales fell by 3.9% over the same period of 2005 to € 574m, and losses narrowed to €47.2m from €118.1m a year earlier.
