Pulse gets shareholder go-ahead to increase share capital
Published:Tuesday | March 22, 2016 | 12:00 AMTameka Gordon
Pulse Investments Limited is planning to develop a health facility at its Villa Ronai complex, and improve storage at its commercial complex Puls8 in New Kingston.
Chairman Kingsley Cooper said the health centre is "meant to cover a range of services from research to surgery, wellness and rehabilitation" ahead of a vote to increase the company's authorised capital from 336,835,181 shares to 450 million shares.
The increase was approved unanimously by at Tuesday's extraordinary general meeting held at Pulse's offices at Puls8. The meeting was sparsely attended by the company's directors and two minority shareholders.
The company wants to raise $500 million to finance real estate projects, as well as improve storage space at Trafalgar Road-based Puls8, Cooper told Wednesday Business.
"Pulse has been in the storage business for a long time and has a 150-unit facility at Trafalgar Road. The plan is to make the facility more customer-friendly en route to achieving the full utilisation of its 12,000-box capacity," he said via email after the meeting.
"A relatively small portion of the funds to be raised would be used to upgrade an existing storage facility at Trafalgar Road and generally provide working capital support for the company's lines of business," Cooper
said.
Of the real estate investments, the company has plans to create a set of town houses and suites on a section of the nine-acre Villa Ronai property.
At the announcement of the real estate plans, Cooper said the town houses and suites won't be rolled out on a set timeline, but would be tackled as capital becomes available.
Tuesday's approval of the increase in share capital was Pulse's second attempt at a vote. Although, as a 76-per cent shareholder, Cooper's vote alone would have been sufficient to carry the resolution, the board chose not to follow through with the vote two months ago after minority owners asked that a comprehensive plan be designed beforehand.
Minority shareholder Michael Hendricks told Wednesday Business at Tuesday's extraordinary meeting that he voted in favour of the share increase because Pulse will need the funds to make good on its plans to build out the real estate venture and finance other projects.
"They are going to implement a state-of-the-art health centre and they are going to need a lot of funds for that," Hendricks said.
The shareholders also gave the Pulse board the go-ahead "to determine the terms and conditions on which any shares may be issued".
Pulse currently has just under 271.8 million ordinary shares in issue, which trade on the Jamaica Stock Exchange. At the stock's current price of $3.30 per share, Pulse would need to issue more than 151 million shares to hit a $500 million fundraising target.