By Roshan Thomas
Feb 20 (Reuters) - Shares of Australian property and logistics company Goodman Group GMG.AX dropped over 7% at resumption on Thursday, a day after the company raised A$4 billion ($2.54 billion) to fund its data centre business growth plans.
Goodman, which went on a halt on Wednesday, announced it would issue 119.42 million shares at a price of A$33.5 apiece, a 6.9% discount to the Sydney-headquartered firm's last closing on February 18.
"Although the increased liquidity and initial dilutionary impact to earnings is expected to weigh on the share price initially once the share opens post a trading halt, we remain optimistic on the double-digit growth trajectory of the business", analysts at Citi said in a note.
"The funds raised will enable us to optimise the opportunities we're creating over the long term, particularly through our data centre offering, and provide greater financial and operational flexibility to manage the next phase of growth", CEO Greg Goodman said.
The escalating demand for data centres is being fuelled by the increasing use of cloud-based technologies, data migration, and AI and machine learning.
On Wednesday, the company reported a first-half operating profit of A$1.22 billion, marking an 8% increase from the same period last year.
($1 = 1.5773 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
((Roshan.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com))
免责声明：投资有风险，本文并非投资建议，以上内容不应被视为任何金融产品的购买或出售要约、建议或邀请，作者或其他用户的任何相关讨论、评论或帖子也不应被视为此类内容。本文仅供一般参考，不考虑您的个人投资目标、财务状况或需求。TTM对信息的准确性和完整性不承担任何责任或保证，投资者应自行研究并在投资前寻求专业建议。