U.K.-based EasyHotel Plc plans to raise roughly £50.0 million, before expenses, from a placing of 45,454,546 new ordinary shares, representing around 45.2% of its issued ordinary shares, at 110.0 pence apiece.

The placing price represents a discount of around 3.9% to the company's Feb. 21 closing midmarket price of 114.5 pence per share.

The owner, developer, operator and franchiser of branded hotels said in a release that it plans to use the gross proceeds to accelerate its owned hotel roll-out strategy. It currently has six U.K. hotels, one French hotel and one Spanish hotel in its owned hotel acquisition pipeline, equating to approximately 1,122 rooms, with an estimated development cost of roughly £60 million. All the assets are in city center destinations, the company noted.

EasyHotel will apply for the placing shares to be admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market, with settlement and admission expected March 13. Upon admission, easyGroup, easyHotel's largest shareholder with 38.4% of its existing ordinary shares, will see its interest in the company's enlarged issued share capital fall to around 26.4%.

Investec Bank plc is the nominated adviser and sole broker for the placing.