Helical Bar is to raise around £30m from an issue of up to 9.7m shares to take advantage of the ‘compelling’ investment opportunities in the UK property market.

The company, which has a market value of around £290m and is headed by Mike Slade, said the management would commit £1m to the placing and the issue had strong support from existing shareholders.

The issue has not yet been priced, but at a small discount to Helical’s current price of 307.25p, nearly £30m would be raised.

JPMorgan Cazenove has been appointed sole bookrunner.

Helical Bar also said today in an interim management statement that its balance sheet remained ‘robust’ and ‘continues to make steady progress on its existing pipeline of projects ‘despite the challenges presented by the turbulent market conditions’.

Slade, Helical Bar chief executive, said: ‘In a rapidly falling market it has been prudent to delay making acquisitions but we remain convinced that compelling value lies ahead of us as prices fall considerably below equilibrium levels. In light of this, the company intends to raise additional equity so that it is even more favourably placed to take advantage of the many opportunities now starting to appear and which we expect to see in the coming months.’

He said Helical had identified investment partners which wish to co-invest alongside Helical which will allow it to ‘deploy its capital efficiently and provide the opportunity to benefit from enhanced returns on successful investments’.