Total still below £4m as Watford equity offer nears close

At 8.30am this morning (Monday), the total amount realised by the scheme was £3,840,017, which means only an additional £13,000 has been raised in the last week.

The amount that has actually been generated and invested in the scheme can be tracked in real time on the website of Seedrs (seedrs.com/watford-fc), which is the English arm of the American company Republic, who are Watford’s partners in the venture.

The amount in dollars shown on republic.com/watfordfc is higher because it reflects not only the sum actually invested but also adds in commitments/pledges that have not yet come to fruition.

So, although the Republic shows a figure of $6,718,604, that number includes money that has not yet actually been invested.

It means there is roughly £1.38m which has been pledged to the share issue, but not been received – and it may not ever actually materialise as a pledge is not a binding investment.

The £3.83m raised so far has been generated by 2,720 investors, meaning the average amount invested by each investor is around £1,412.

When the scheme was launched at the start of last month, Watford had a target of raising £17.5m, which represented 10% of the club’s total shares.

The digital equity scheme flew out of the traps and raised more than £3.7m inside two weeks.

However, new investment in the weeks since has slowed significantly, meaning 98% of the funds raised through the digital investment scheme arrived in the opening fortnight.

Similarly, the number of new investors has also dipped since the digital equity offer was launched early last month – 88% of those who have invested did so in the 14 days after the offering was launched.

There are now 11 days until the digital offer is due to close, and unless there are several lumpy investments to come in the closing few days, then the original target of £17.5m is very unlikely to be reached.

Indeed, at the current rate of investment, the club will not realise £4m of actual investment.