Fundraising - excess demand from Subscribers

RNS Number : 6464A

Cora Gold Limited

03 June 2021

 

Cora Gold Limited / EPIC: CORA.L / Market: AIM / Sector: Mining

03 June 2021

Cora Gold Limited ('Cora' or 'the Company')

Fundraising - excess demand from Subscribers

Cora Gold Limited, the West African focused gold exploration company, is pleased to announce that it has conditionally raised £3,132,937.50 million (before expenses) through a subscription of 40,425,000 new ordinary shares of no par value in the Company ('Ordinary Shares') at a price of 7.75 pence per Ordinary Share (the 'Subscription Shares') (the 'Fundraising'). The funds raised will principally be used for further drilling, related exploration activities and ongoing study work focussed on growing resources at the Company's flagship Sanankoro Gold Project in southern Mali. Excess demand from subscribers to the Fundraising means that Cora has now fully allotted the maximum number of shares authorised by its shareholders at the 2020 Annual General Meeting.

Binding commitments to subscribe (the 'Subscription') for a total of 40,425,000 Subscription Shares have been received from Brookstone Business Inc ('Brookstone'; the Company's largest shareholder), Lord Farmer (a substantial shareholder), Key Ventures Holding Ltd ('Key Ventures'; a substantial shareholder), certain directors of the Company and other subscribers. Details of their participation and consequent interest in the Company's issued share capital is described below.

The Fundraising is conditional on admission of the Subscription Shares to trading on AIM ('Admission').

Bert Monro, Chief Executive Officer of Cora, commented, "I am very pleased with the strong support we have received in this fundraise from many of our existing shareholders. Following the receipt of all subscription funds the Company will have total cash of approximately £4.6 million (~US$6.5 million). Drilling is ongoing at Sanankoro and it has been pleasing to see such strong results coming out of the programme to date. We look forward to releasing further drill results over the coming months before a targeted resource update in H2 2021. Certain aspects of the Definitive Feasibility Study have already kicked off with more to commence in the coming months. We look forward to keeping all shareholders updated with our progress at this exciting time for the Company."

Details of the Subscription

Use of proceeds

It is intended that the proceeds of the Fundraising will principally be used for further drilling, related exploration activities and ongoing study work focussed on growing resources at the Company's flagship Sanankoro Gold Project in southern Mali. Additionally, the proceeds of the Fundraising will be used to continue exploration of the Company's other permits and for general working capital purposes.

Admission and Total Voting Rights

The Company has conditionally raised approximately £3.1 million, before expenses, through the proposed issue of 40,425,000 Subscription Shares to certain existing shareholders and new investors.

As noted above, the Fundraising is subject to Admission. Application will be made for the Subscription Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and it is expected that Admission will become effective and dealing in the Subscription Shares will commence on or around 09 June 2021. The Subscription Shares will rank pari passu with the existing Ordinary Shares.

Following Admission, the share capital of the Company will be comprised of 245,807,159 Ordinary Shares. The above figure of 245,807,159 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in Cora under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Related party transaction

The Subscription by each of Brookstone, Lord Farmer, Key Ventures, Edward Bowie, Andrew Chubb, Robert ('Bert') Monro and Paul Quirk constitutes related party transactions pursuant to Rule 13 of the AIM Rules. Having consulted with the Company's nominated adviser, David Pelham, a Non-Executive Director of the Company, considers that the terms of the transaction are fair and reasonable insofar as its shareholders are concerned.

The following directors of the Company or their connected parties have given a binding commitment to subscribe for the following numbers of shares in the Fundraising:

● Edward Bowie (independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the board) - 64,000 Subscription Shares;

● Andrew Chubb (independent Non-Executive Director) - 129,000 Subscription Shares;

● Robert Monro (Chief Executive Officer and a Director) - 182,000 Subscription Shares; and

● Paul Quirk (Non-Executive Director) - 1,820,000 Subscription Shares, being through Key Ventures which is wholly owned and controlled by First Island Trust Company Limited as Trustee of The Sunnega Trust, a discretionary trust with a broad class of potential beneficiaries. Paul Quirk is a potential beneficiary of The Sunnega Trust.

On Admission certain substantial shareholders of the Company will hold the following numbers of Ordinary Shares:

● Brookstone will be the registered holder of 71,260,025 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 28.99 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company on Admission. Brookstone is wholly owned and controlled by First Island Trust Company Limited as Trustee of the Nodo Trust, a discretionary trust with a broad class of potential beneficiaries. Patrick Quirk, the father of Paul Quirk (a Non-Executive Director of the Company), is a potential beneficiary of the Nodo Trust; and

● Lord Farmer will be the registered holder of 35,190,536 Ordinary Shares, representing approximately 14.32 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company on Admission.

Relationship Agreement

On 18 March 2020 Brookstone, Key Ventures and Paul Quirk (collectively the 'Investors') entered into a Relationship Agreement to regulate the relationship between the Investors and the Company on an arm's length and normal commercial basis. In the event that Investors' aggregated shareholdings becomes less than 30 per cent. then the Relationship Agreement shall terminate. As at the date of this news release the Investors' aggregated shareholdings were 31.61 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company. On Admission the Investors' revised aggregated shareholdings will be 34.55 per cent. of the issued share capital of the Company.

Revised shareholdings following Admission

On Admission, the revised shareholdings of the following directors and substantial shareholders will be:

	Current shareholding	Subscription Shares	Shareholding on Admission	Percentage of enlarged issued share capital
Brookstone Business Inc	53,060,025	18,200,000	71,260,025	28.99%
Lord Farmer	29,410,536	5,780,000	35,190,536	14.32%
Key Ventures Holding Ltd plus Paul Quirk (Non-Executive Director)	11,854,689	1,820,000	13,674,689	5.56%
Edward Bowie (Non-Executive Director)	361,510	64,000	425,510	0.17%
Andrew Chubb (Non-Executive Director)	210,526	129,000	339,526	0.14%
Robert Monro (Director)	1,546,896	182,000	1,728,896	0.70%

Market Abuse Regulation ('MAR') Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

**ENDS**

For further information, please visit  http://www.coragold.com  or contact:

Bert Monro / Norm Bailie	Cora Gold Limited	[phone]
Christopher Raggett / Charlie Beeson	finnCap Ltd (Nomad & Joint Broker)	[phone]
Andy Thacker / James Pope	Turner Pope Investments (Joint Broker)	[phone]
Susie Geliher / Isabel de Salis	St Brides Partners (Financial PR)	[phone]

Notes

Cora is a gold company focused on two world class gold regions in Mali and Senegal in West Africa. Historical exploration has resulted in the highly prospective Sanankoro Gold Discovery, in addition to multiple, high potential, drill ready gold targets within its broader portfolio. Cora's primary focus is on further developing Sanankoro in the Yanfolila Gold Belt (southern Mali), which Cora believes has the potential for a standalone mine development. Sanankoro has a positive Scoping Study published on it showing an 107% IRR and US$41.5m NPV₈ at a US$1,500 gold price. Cora's highly experienced management team has a proven track record in making multi-million-ounce gold discoveries, which have been developed into operating mines.

 

END

 

 

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