Shares in online competitions company Best of the Best (BOTB:AIM) plunged 16% to £24 on Thursday after the company made a secondary placing of 2.54 million shares at £24, representing a 16% discount to the previous closing price.
The placing included 41,666 shares via the PrimaryBid app for retail investors.
Although the retail element of the offering was well intentioned, a ‘payment provider issue’ resulted in a torrent of complaints on social media from frustrated retail investors who had been unable to take advantage of the discounted shares because the app failed to process their payments.
‘Not wasting any more time on PrimaryBid, tried the website and the app is not showing anything for BOTB’ was typical of the comments made on Twitter.
Another said, ‘2 cards of mine were turned down, awful service. If they are going to be so strict with address matching details (presuming) at least they should have good phone backup support.’
Shares spoke with an apologetic PrimaryBid.com, which was ‘desperately sorry’ about the failure of the BOTB offering.
The company pointed out that it has completed hundreds of deals over the last month without any major hiccups.
INCREASING LIQUIDITY
Best of the Best’s directors have sold down around a third of their holdings to facilitate institutional and private investor demand and increase liquidity in the shares.
This follows a decision by the group, which organises online competitions with ‘Dream Cars’ and luxury lifestyle prizes, to continue with its existing growth strategy as a publicly listed company, after rejecting the idea of selling the business.
The selling directors still maintain significant ‘skin in the game’ following the placing, holding around 47% of the shares.
