Prospa’s lawyers, Herbert Smith Freehills, have been left scrambling after being blindsided by ASIC yesterday ahead of its planned float today.
The online lender was due to list at midday (AEST) but according to a statement issued by the ASX at about 11.45am (AEST) has been delayed by “approximately” 48 hours due to queries by ASIC over its loan terms.
The move by the company and its advisers, UBS and Macquarie Capital, to put Prospa’s ASX debut off until Friday is an embarrassing blow.
Prospa planned to list about 25 per cent of the company’s shares for $146.5 million. The shares were priced at $3.46 each and the company has a market capitalisation of about $546m.
The deal was considered a small but important test of the state of Australian equity capital markets, which have been starved of recent transactions.
DataRoom understands that Prospa and its lawyers HSF were approached only yesterday by ASIC as part of its industry-wide review into bank and non-bank small business lending.
It’s not clear why the deal was not put on hold yesterday after the ASIC approach, rather than waiting until 15 minutes before it was meant to debut on the ASX.
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