Wellington, Aug 7 NZPA - Investment Research Group (IRG) managing director Brent King's investment vehicle today exercised about 4 million 6c IRG 2011 warrants.

" The issue effectively represents a capitalisation of indebtedness owed by the company to Brent King, and strengthens the company's balance sheet accordingly," IRG said.

The shares issued were worth about $240,000.

Earlier this week investment adviser IRG said it had breached its banking covenants and needed to raise about $500,000.

"I have made it clear that the company intends to address the issue with its banking covenants as a matter of urgency," Mr King said today.

"We have had a number of approaches from parties interested in discussing various options. These vary from asset purchases to direct cash investments.

"We will not sell assets; we believe we have some very valuable assets. The raising of the cash will actually make the company stronger and will open other opportunities to us."

The shares issued to Snowdon Peak represented the maximum number of shares that could be issued to it in compliance with the Takeovers Code at this time, IRG said.

The issue of shares to Snowdon Peak took its level of shareholding in IRG back to 28.6 percent, which was the level of its holding before a recent placement of shares made by IRG.

IRG shares last traded 1.7c a share yesterday.

NZPA