Sygnus Credit garners US$21m so far

Sygnus Credit Investments offer of up to 90,909,091 ordinary share is said to be oversubscribed with around 3,000 applications amounting to more than US$21 million compared to the US$10 million that was being sought.
The offer is expected to close early next week our sources advice, with the amounts subscribed to likely to increase to those above. Applications have been received from the diaspora and within the wider Caribbean, IC Insider.com was informed. The company is likely to take up approximately 60 percent of the excess demand in keeping with the clause in the Prospectus that gave them the right to up lift the take in case of an oversubscription.
With the level of oversubscription, the total issued shares that was projected to be just over 250 million units should end up at just over 300 million ordinary shares.
The prospectus list the current yield on the portfolio of invested funds at 10.3 percent.
The capital structure of the company and the choice of investing funds will tend to result in a return closer to fixed interest levels, but likely higher than some bank lending rates, in the short to medium term as such investors should be looking for steady growth but relatively high dividend payments in the medium term. The falling interest rates on Jamaican dollar money market instrument will make the dividend payment very attractive source of income.
Sygnus Credit Investments is a specialty private credit investment company, dedicated to providing non-traditional financing to medium-sized firms across the wider Caribbean region. These companies typically have revenues between US$5 million and US$25 million.
The investment objective of the Company is to generate attractive risk adjusted returns with an emphasis on principal protection, by generating current income, and to a lesser extent capital appreciation, through investments primarily in Portfolio Companies using private credit instruments.
The company intends to pay out up to 85 percent of its net income as dividends to shareholders, payable on a quarterly basis. The target dividend yield is over 7 percent on the IPO price.
At December 2017, SCI had US$16.7 million in assets and generated net profits of US$660,855. The value of investment in Portfolio Companies was US$11.6 million, generating a yield of 10.3 percent.
Earnings for 2019 fiscal year could be around J$1-1.2 per share and that could see the stock trading between $15 and $20 within twelve months. Returns could be greater if they use borrowed funds to meet some of the demand they have for funding.
The Company currently has a robust pipeline of US$31.4 million in deals to finance, of which US$3.2 million has been approved, US$12.3 million has been mandated and US$15.9 million are at various stages of prospecting.