The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company will start trading its shares online via the London-based electronic trading platform Asset Match this week.
London-based Asset Match provides a market platform for existing Isles of Scilly Steamship Company shareholders to partially or fully realise the value of their share capital, and also allows the purchase of the firm’s shares by new investors.
The platform allows such investors to buy and sell shares in the company via online auctions.
Shares are traded via the Asset Match website which brings together bids to buy shares and offers to sell in regular auctions.
The first Steamship Company share auction closes on October 29, with further auctions on November 26 and December 17, and thereafter quarterly.
The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company - which has 1.4million ordinary shares in issue - was at a price of 500 pence per share, giving an indicative market cap of £7million.
Stuart Reid, Steamship Company chief executive, said: “Asset Match gives existing shareholders and potential new investors the opportunity to trade shares in a dynamic and transparent way, whereas before we have relied on traditional stock transfer forms.
“Because of our history, most of our shareholders are on the islands or in the South West of England and many have inherited their shares over generations.
“Asset Match gives them an easy route to realise the value of their shares should they want to, while making it much easier for new investors to come on board, diversifying our shareholder base.”
The Steamship Company has provided passenger and freight services to the remote Isles of Scilly community 28 miles off the coast of Cornwall for 100 years.
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Originally established by islanders in 1920, the business has grown into an air and sea operation carrying more than 200,000 passengers a year.
This includes its own ships sailing from Penzance, and the company’s Skybus airline flying from Exeter, Newquay and Land’s End Airports. Later this year the company plans to trial a new freight service using a remotely piloted drone.
In the year to March 31, 2020, the business reported a pre-tax profit of £1.02million on turnover of £18.4million and a net assets total of £10.4million.
People using the Asset Match platform mainly consist of shareholders of the companies listed along with high net worth individuals and sophisticated investors looking to put their cash into private sector businesses.
Usually companies that list on the platform have more than 50 shareholders, a turnover in excess of £10million and an experienced board of directors. The Asset Match team undertakes a large amount of research and due diligence before allowing companies onto the platform.
