Admission to AIM, First Day of Dealing and Placing

RNS Number : 1597N

BlueRock Diamonds PLC

04 September 2013

 



BlueRock Diamonds plc

("BlueRock" or the "Company")

Admission to trading on AIM, First Day of Dealing and Placing

The Directors of BlueRock Diamonds plc are pleased to announce that the Company's Ordinary Shares were admitted to trading on AIM at 8.00a.m. today. The Ordinary Shares will trade under the ticker 'AIM: BRD' and the Company's ISIN code is GB00B84H1764. SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP is acting as Nominated Adviser and Broker to BlueRock.

Following the passing of the Resolutions at the General Meeting held yesterday, the Kareevlei Option has been exercised and as a result, the Company's Subsidiary, Kareevlei Mining is to proceed to acquire the Mining Right in respect of the Kareevlei Tenements (subject to obtaining Ministerial Consent) and is to acquire the Mining Equipment, which includes a diamond processing facility. The Kareevlei Tenements are located in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa, approximately 100 kilometres northwest of the town of Kimberley.

The Kareevlei Tenements include the Kareevlei Kimberlites, five kimberlite pipes ranging in size from <0.5 hectares to <5.6 hectares. The aggregate Consideration for the Kareevlei Option and the purchase of the Mining Right and Mining Equipment is R4,000,000 (approximately £261,000) to be satisfied in cash of which R150,000 (approximately £10,000) has been paid.

The Company has raised £1.31 million (approximately £0.96 million net of expenses) by the issue of 18,735,703 new Ordinary Shares pursuant to the Placing at 7 pence per Placing Share. The Placing Shares represent 59.4% of the enlarged ordinary share capital of the Company. The number of Ordinary Shares in issue immediately following Admission will be 31,525,041 giving the Company a market capitalisation of approximately £2.21 million at the Placing Price. The net proceeds of the Placing will be utilised to purchase the Mining Right and Mining Equipment, to fund plant upgrade, plant refurbishment and mine set up costs, the development of pipe K1 within the Kareevlei Tenements and working capital requirements of the Group.

The Directors have concluded that mining operations will begin on the K1 pipe. The Directors intend that contractors will be used to remove the calcrete overburden; this will involve waste stripping, hauling, drilling and blasting during the first three months following Admission with mining activities expected to commence in the fourth month following Admission. Rather than waiting to assess a larger 1,000 carat sample, it is expected that the Directors will assess diamond recovery on a continuous basis against the estimated grades and revenues set out in the Competent Person's Report.

For further information please visit www.bluerockdiamonds.co.uk or contact:

BlueRock Diamonds plc

Jonathan Quirk

[phone]

SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP - Nominated Adviser & Broker

David Facey / Katy Birkin / Liz Yong

[phone]

Gable Communications

Justine James / John Bick                                            

[phone] or 07872 061007

[e-mail]

Background and Strategy

BlueRock Diamonds plc was incorporated in England and Wales on 11 October 2012 and was established to invest in under-exploited diamond mines and diamondiferous tailings dumps in South Africa and sub Saharan Africa, with an initial focus on the Kimberley area of South Africa. The Company was admitted to the ISDX Growth Market on 7 March 2013 and raised £0.28 million by way of a placing of 2,149,338 Ordinary Shares at 13 pence per share.

Following the review and evaluation of a number of potential acquisition targets, the Directors identified the Kareevlei Tenements as an opportunity that fulfilled the Company's investment criteria.

On 23 April 2013, the Company entered into the Kareevlei Option Agreement with Diamond Resources, a subsidiary of Tawana, an ASX and JSE listed company, pursuant to which the Company was granted an option to acquire the Mining Right and the Mining Equipment. Prior to Admission, the Company, through its Subsidiary, Kareevlei Mining, exercised its rights under

the Kareevlei Option Agreement to enter into and complete the Equipment Agreement and to enter into the Mining Agreement.

Following Admission, the Company intends to commence immediately Trial Mining Operations under license from Diamond Resources as set out in the Mining Agreement (as amended), until Ministerial Consent for the transfer of the Mining Right has been obtained. If after eight months from the inception of the Mining Agreement, Ministerial Consent for the transfer of the Mining Right has not been obtained, unless the parties agree otherwise, Kareevlei Mining has the right to be appointed as a contractor to continue the Trial Mining Operations for an additional period of up to 24 months after the commencement date or until Ministerial Consent is obtained, whichever occurs first.

The Mining Equipment to be acquired by BlueRock on Admission includes an on-site processing plant and a final recovery section which is based in a leased area at the De Beers facility in Kimberley, both of which are in good condition. The on site processing plant includes crushers, screens and a 25 tonne per hour dense media separation plant ("DMS") plant. Electricity to operate the plant is generated by three diesel powered generators. The onsite plant is in good condition and following refurbishment of the screens and crushing circuits is expected to be suitable for kimberlite treatment. The final recovery plant based in Kimberley at the De Beers facility includes conveyors, screens, a containerised dual station Flowsort^TM (X ray) machine and a grease table.

Prospecting to date

Since De Beers discovered the Kareevlei kimberlites in 1991 during an airborne magnetic survey, significant prospecting work has been carried out, including percussion and Bauer^TM auger drilling. Sufficient work had been carried out on three of the pipes, K1, K2 and K3, such that following the execution of the Kareevlei Option Agreement, the Company commissioned a Competent Person's Report on the Kareevlei Tenements in order to provide a resource estimate under the SAMREC code based on the prospecting work to date, a summary of which is as follows:

Pipe	Tonnes	Carats	Grade (cpht)	Classification
K1	1,594,000	101,000	6.3	Inferred
K2	2,461,000	111,000	4.5	Inferred
K3	3,929,000	147,000	3.7	Inferred
Total	7,984,000	359,000

Directors

Paul John Beck, aged 68, Non Executive Chairman, British/South African

Paul Beck was born and went to school in South Africa. He is a member of a well known South African mining family and has experience in the real estate and natural resource sectors, in the UK, US and South Africa. He was a founding Director and Chairman of Firstland Oil & Gas, which owned oil exploration assets in the Falklands and oil and gas producing wells in the US. Mr Beck has undertaken projects with black economic empowerment partners in South Africa, and has worked on tailings retreatment projects in the region.

Christiaan ("Riaan") Breytenbach Visser, aged 53, Chief Executive Officer, South African

Riaan Visser is a Chartered Accountant based in Kimberley, and is responsible for the day to day running of the company and the finance function.

Riaan has been involved in diamond mining and tailings retreatment projects in the Kimberley area since 1995 and is currently CFO of Kimberley Consolidated Mines, formerly a Johannesburg Stock Exchange AltX listed company, where he was appointed by shareholders to wind down the business following suspension of trading of the company's shares.

He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa and is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants.

John Leslie Courtney Kilham, aged 57, Chief Technical Officer, South African/British

John Kilham is a geologist with 33 years of experience, 27 of which he spent with De Beers and most recently was responsible for resource evaluation projects in Kimberley. He has particular experience in resource estimation, open cast diamond mining, tailings retreatment and diamond recovery plant and machinery.

He is a member of the Geological Society of South Africa, a certified professional of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (SACNASP) and is qualified as a competent person. He holds a Masters degree in Geology, has dual South African and British nationality and is based in Kimberley, South Africa.

John will assume technical responsibility for the implementation of the Group's mining plan.

Andries ("André") Thomas Markgraaff, aged 56, Non Executive Director, South African

André Markgraaff started his business career in 1987 following a successful career playing rugby and is now based in Kimberley and Stellenbosch, South Africa. He has been awarded Northern Cape Business Man of the year, and in 2005, he was awarded first place overall in the category "Northern Cape leaders and achievers - Outstanding service and contribution to the Northern Cape economy by a business person" by Professional Management Review (PMR), a business publication which issues annual awards for achievement in business in South Africa.

Jonathan Stuart Quirk, aged 61, Non Executive Director, British

Jonathan Quirk qualified as a Chartered Accountant and has worked in the financial services sector since 1974 for, among others, Morgan Grenfell and Deutsche Bank in their capital markets divisions. In 1997 he became a founding director of Cairnsea Investments Ltd, an investment company, where for the last 15 years he has specialised in investing in quoted and unquoted smaller companies, particularly in the financial and more recently the natural resources sector.

Timothy ("Tim") Grahame Leslie, aged 47, Non Executive Director, British

Tim Leslie has worked in the financial markets for over 25 years. He joined Paribas in 1986 and since has worked for JPMorgan, HSBC and then at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette ("DLJ"). In 2000, DLJ was bought by Credit Suisse and Tim left to join the hedge fund Moore Capital Management LLC as a portfolio manager.

In 2003 Tim launched a new fund at Moore Capital, the Moore Credit Fund, for which he was the Chief Investment Officer. Tim left Moore Capital in 2008 and launched James Caird Asset Management LLP with assets under management of USD3.6bn as at launch. In 2011, Tim founded JCAM investments Ltd to run a family office and make longer term investments.

Kareevlei Mining

William ("Willie") Alexander van Wyk, aged 54, South African

Kareevlei Mining's BEE Partner is Ghaap Mining, a company wholly owned by William van Wyk. Mr van Wyk is an experienced diamond mining plant engineer with 26 years service with De Beers. He has particular expertise in the manufacturing, design, and maintenance of diamond recovery machinery and will be actively involved in Kareevlei Mining's operations.

 

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