Binary options platform provider and broker TechFinancials Inc (LON:TECH) has announced that it has issued 3,868,615 of its shares to the owners of its joint venture partner, Optionfortune Trade Limited. Optionfortune operates the DragonFinancials binary options broker, focused on Chinese and Far East clients.
As we reported in early June, TechFinancials had actually placed the shares in escrow when the JV was set up mid last year, with full transfer to the Optionfortune owners dependent on the JV achieving certain 2016 Revenue and Profit targets. With those targets having been exceeded, the shares have now been formally issued and released.
TechFinancials has received $2.5 million in dividend payments from DragonFinancials representing its share of the profits for 2016, indicating that the JV did indeed have a very good kickoff – and also indicated the strength of the Chinese binary options market, at a time when the sector is coming under pressure and scrutiny elsewhere around the world.
However the shares the Optionfortune owners received are now worth a lot less than they were when first put into escrow. The original share issue was done based on TechFinancials’ IPO price of 27 pence per share, or USD $1.54 million. With TechFinancials share price down to just 9 pence, and the drop of the British Pound post-Brexit vote, those 3.87 million shares are worth just $442,000.
Following completion of the share transfer at the end of March, TechFinancials will have 72,542,166 shares outstanding, giving the company a market cap of £6.6 million ($8.3 million).