As expected, Faron raised funding through a directed issue

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 2/6/2025 at 9:22 am EET.

Last night, Faron announced last night that he would carry out a targeted issue to be conducted by way of an accelerated book-building. The company was aiming for a capital raise of around 10 MEUR, but with a 1.8-fold oversubscription, the company will upsize the issue and raise gross proceeds of 12 MEUR (before expenses).  With the support of the directed issue, the company's financing will be sufficient until September this year without breaching the loan covenants. The issue was executed at a slight discount of 10% (EUR 1.72/share, yesterday's closing price EUR 1.918/share) and will increase the company's share capital only slightly (~7%). We had expected the company to raise funding from a good position, so the successful funding round is no surprise in our view. We will update our forecasts at the latest with the publication of the financial statements (February 27).

Next up: BEXMAB I/II final readout

Faron's funding before the directed issue would have been sufficient to cover the end of Q1'25 without breaching the loan covenants. We considered equity financing (share issue) or a partnership agreement as the most likely next financing options for the company. Last week, Faron reported that the topline readout of phase I/II of the BEXMAB study had been postponed to April. This made a share issue the most likely financing option, as we do not expect the company to seek a partnership agreement until after the readout. In practical terms, the funds now raised will carry the Company beyond the April topline readout of its BEXMAB I/II trial and allow the Company to enter into its next financing, either a partnering agreement or other arrangement, with a more mature research program.