?1.5 million Fundraise and Grant of Share Options

RNS Number : 1765V

Dekeloil Public Limited

24 October 2014

 



24 October 2014

DekelOil Public Limited

('DekelOil' or 'the Company')

£1.5 million Fundraise

and Grant of Share Options

DekelOil Public Limited, the West African focused palm oil producer with a 51% interest in a vertically integrated palm oil project in Ayanouan, Côte d'Ivoire, announces that it has today raised £1.5 million before expenses through a placing of 87,200,000 new ordinary shares of €0.00003367 each ("Ordinary Shares") in the capital of the Company ("Placing Shares") (the "Placing") and a subscription of 35,706,720 Ordinary Shares with new and existing investors at 1.25 pence per share (the "Subscription") (together, the "Fund Raise"). The net funds raised will enable the Company to invest in a new kernel crushing plant at Ayanouan. The addition of the kernel crushing plant will allow the Company to extract further value from the kernels from its operational 60t/hr Crude Palm Oil ('CPO') extraction mill ('the Mill'), one of West Africa's largest. It is expected that once contracted, the kernel crushing plant will begin operations in Q4 2015, and will allow the Company to sell both Palm Kernel Oil and animal feed in the local market.

Highlights

•    £1.5 million raised via the Fund Raise to fund construction of 60tn/day kernel crushing plant which will materially increase profitability of Ayanouan project

•    Low capex requirement of £1.1 million with highly attractive payback credentials

•    Strong local demand will allow Palm Kernel Oil and Animal Feed produced by the plant to be sold at the factory gate which will have a positive impact on margins

•    Discussions underway with regards to securing local offtake agreements

•    Tendering process for the plant on-going and the Company will announce the successful party in due course - plant to be operational by Q4 2015

Under the terms of the investment agreement, DekelOil will invite its JV partner to match fund the investment required for the kernel crushing plant.  In the event that the JV partner elects to co-invest in the kernel crushing plant any excess funding will be used to expand the existing Company-owned plantations at Ayanouan. The Company will provide a further update on the level of its intended expansion once funding arrangements have been finalised.

Lincoln Moore, Executive Director, said: "The 60tn/day kernel crushing plant will further improve the already highly attractive economics of our project in Ayanouan.  Today's fundraise allows us to fast track construction of the new plant, which in turn will allow us to satisfy the strong local demand we are seeing for palm kernel oil and animal feed and in the process secure more of the available value for DekelOil.  In a short space of time, we have transformed DekelOil into a revenue generative vertically integrated palm oil business.  As well as one of West Africa's largest CPO mills, our operations at Ayanouan include long term agreements covering 27,000 hectares of mature plantations, 2,000 hectares of Company owned planted estates, a state of the art nursery, and an expanding logistics network. Combined, Ayanouan provides us with a platform from which we can capitalise on a number of value enhancing opportunities, such as the kernel crushing plant, as we focus on building DekelOil into a leading West African palm oil company."

The Board is also pleased to report that following detailed discussions, it expects its current term facility with BOAD to extend payment terms by a further 12 months to 31 January 2016. Further updates will be made in due course.

Details of the Placing and Subscription

The Placing Shares represent 6.2 per cent. of the existing share capital of the Company and the Subscription Shares represent 2.5 per cent. of the existing share capital of the Company. Following the Fund Raise the Company expects to have 1,529,924,104 Ordinary Shares in issue.

The Placing Shares and Subscription Shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the existing issued ordinary share capital of the Company. Application will be made for the Placing Shares and Subscription Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM and trading is expected to commence on 31 October 2014.

Following the Fund Raise, the issued share capital of the Company will increase to 1,529,924,104 Ordinary Shares (the "Enlarged Share Capital"). This figure 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, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules of the FCA.

Grant of Options

The Company also announces that, conditional upon the Fund Raise, the Directors listed below have been granted share options over a total of 81,000,000 ordinary shares of €0.00003367 each ("Ordinary Shares") on 21 October 2014 at nil cost (the "Options"). The Options in aggregate represent the right to acquire shares in the Company which amount to 5.3 per cent. of the Enlarged Share Capital.

The Options vest immediately on their grant and are exercisable for a period of 5 years from their grant. Half of the Options granted to each Director are exercisable at a price of 1.25 pence per Ordinary Share while the remainder are exercisable at a price of 2 pence per share.

Name	Number of options  awarded with exercise price of 2 pence	Number of options awarded with exercise price of 1.25 pence	Total number of shares over which options held as at the date of this announcement	Existing ordinary shares held at 23 October 2014	Percentage holding of Enlarged Share Capital following the Fund Raise (assuming full exercise of options)
Youval Rasin	9,000,000	9,000,000	18,000,000	404,173,541	27.6%
Yehoshua Shai Kol	9,000,000	9,000,000	18,000,000	132,906,738	9.9%
Lincoln Moore	9,000,000	9,000,000	18,000,000	13,675,000	2.1%
Andrew Tillery	9,000,000	9,000,000	18,000,000	0	1.2%
Orli Arav	4,500,000	4,500,000	9,000,000	0	0.6%

** ENDS **

For further information please visit the Company's website www.dekeloil.com or contact:

Youval Rasin	DekelOil Public Limited	Tel: [phone]
Shai Kol
Lincoln Moore
Andrew Craig Ben Wright	Nplus1 Singer Advisory LLP (Nominated Adviser and Broker)	Tel: [phone]
Christian Dennis Jeremy King	Optiva Securities Limited (Joint Broker)	Tel: [phone]
Elisabeth Cowell	St Brides Media & Finance Ltd	Tel: [phone]
Frank Buhagiar

Notes:

DekelOil Public Limited is a low cost producer of palm oil in West Africa, which it is focused on rapidly expanding.  To this end, it has a 51% interest in one of the largest oil processing mills based in Côte d'Ivoire, which has a capacity of 70,000 tons of CPO.  Feedstock for the Mill comes from 27,000 hectares of mature palm oil plantations that have been secured under long term contracts with smallholders, however it also has nearly 1,900 hectares of its own plantations.  Furthermore, it has a world-class nursery with a 1 million seedlings a year capacity.

 

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