Andrew Willis

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The good news for OPTI Canada is there are buyers for $150-million of new shares in the oil sands play.

Now, here comes the tough love for long term shareholders- new investors are demanding a steep discount before they are willing to back this company.

OPTI shares never traded on Wednesday, as the company worked with TD Securities, Credit Suisse and RBC Dominion Securities to close a marketed stock sale that was launched late Tuesday.

OPTI shares last traded on Tuesday at $2.60 each. The underwriters aren’t commenting, but chatter among fund managers is the new equity will need to be priced at $1.80 a share to find sufficient investor support. That's a 31 per cent discount. To do a deal with this large a discount, fund managers say OPTI might need to get approval from regulators.

Shares in this company, which is working on the Long Lake project, have been on a roller coaster over the last year that reflects volatile commodity prices and the cost of financing oil sands projects. OPTI hit a low of 61 cents earlier in 2009, during the credit crunch, and traded at $24.55 last June. OPTI went public back in 2004 at $22 a share