Good morning, it's Paul here.

This report is earlier & shorter than Mon-Wed reports. That's because I'm flying out to Malta at lunchtime, for a cheap, end of season break. Am taking my laptop with me, so I'll write Friday's report as usual, just from abroad.

Estimated time of completion: 10 am. Update at 09:29 - today's report is now finished. I managed to cover everything of interest, as there's not much small caps trading/results news today.

Agenda - it's a quiet day for news, thank goodness;

Carpetright (LON:CPR) - possible offer

Foxtons (LON:FOXT) - trading statement

Proactis Holdings (LON:PHD) - results

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Carpetright (LON:CPR)

Share price: 9.12p (pre market open)
No. shares: 303.8m
Market cap: £27.7m

Refinancing, possible offer, and trading update

This carpet retailer did a CVA, to dispose of its problem leases, and has been propped up financially for some time by its major shareholders Meditor European Master Fund. Without Meditor's large financial support, Carpetright would have almost certainly gone bust. Note that Meditor bailed out the banks, by buying them out in Aug 2019. It's obvious now that Meditor made a bad mistake supporting Carpetright - a classic investing error of repeatedly throwing good money after bad. I know that feeling well, albeit on a rather smaller scale!

Funding requirement - today's announcement says that Carpetright needs £80m in funding;

The Board believes that approximately £80 million is needed for the Company to (i) repay the Debt Facilities; (ii) meet the Company's ongoing working capital requirements; and (iii) provide the Company with the necessary growth capital to execute its strategy as set out below.

Funding options - the company has explored other funding options, but it sounds as if Meditor is the only game in town.

Possible offer - Meditor has sounded out other institutional shareholders, to see if they would accept a 5p cash offer for the whole company. This makes sense, as Carpetright is totally reliant on Meditor's existing financial backing, that they might as well buy the whole lot. The intention is then to convert debt into equity, and presumably lick their wounds in private, rather than on the public market.

Indications of support for a 5p bid have been received from holders of 24.0% of the shares, plus Meditor's existing c.30% holding, means that they're already more…

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