FMA looks into VMob disclosures

Scott Bradley, chief executive and founder of mobile marketing company VMob. Photo / Greg Bowker

The Financial Markets Authority is looking into disclosures this week by NZAX-listed VMob Group relating to a $2.17 million private share placement announced shortly after a global deal with fast food chain McDonald's.

Early on Monday it announced a commercial deal, the terms of which were undisclosed, to provide its cloud-based customer engagement platform to McDonald's restaurants globally, with an immediate roll out in the large US market. It built on an existing relationship the company had with the fast food chain in the Netherlands, Sweden and Japan.

VMob's share price rose from 1.1 cents to 2.4 cents on the news and is currently trading at 1.9 cents, having dropped 55 percent in the past year.

Several hours later on Monday, VMob then announced it had completed a $2.17 million share placement to high net worth individuals, institutions, and certain company directors at 1 Australian cent per share (1.06 NZ cents).

That fell short of the $3 million it originally said it wanted to raise last December which was then deferred to the New Year because of the holiday break while it negotiated with investors.

The FMA said although it had not received any complaints about VMob, it was aware of recent events relating to it and was looking into it. That step falls short of a formal investigation.

It's understood that the VMob directors participating in the placement were existing shareholders, chairman Phil Norman and founder and managing director Scott Bradley.

VMob's software platform allows retails to offer discount vouchers that consumers can download to their smartphones and redeem instore, with consumers able to search for deals near their location.

The company announced an interim loss of almost $2 million in November on sales of $500,000.