Holdings in Company

RNS Number : 7212I

SolGold PLC

21 June 2017

 

21 June 2017

SolGold plc

("SolGold" or the "Company")

Updated Holdings

The Board of Directors of SolGold wishes to advise that, further to last Friday's announcement regarding the USD$41.2 million capital raising, 78,889,080 new ordinary shares have now been allotted.  Newcrest international Pty Ltd subscribed a majority of placement shares in the allotment, which has further enlarged their shareholding up to 219,772,271 shares representing 14.54% of the current share capital.

Furthermore, SolGold plc wishes to clarify that Newcrest's increased anti-dilutionary right will operate for a 12 month term.  After this period, the terms of the original subscription agreement with Newcrest dated 30 August 2016 continue, providing Newcrest with anti-dilutionary rights at a 10% level.

Application has been made for the newly issued shares to be admitted to trading on AIM, and admission is expected to take place on or around Friday 23 June 2017.

As a result of the issue and allotment of the shares as outlined above, the Company is aware of the following updated Director and significant holdings:

Directors Holdings:

No Directors participated in the capital raising, but their respective percentage holdings decreased as a result of the capital raising.

Company Director	Shareholding	% of Issued Capital
Nicholas Mather	89,268,275	5.91%
Brian Moller	4,089,121	0.27%
Robert Weinberg	4,296,091	0.28%
John Bovard	3,858,813	0.26%
Craig Jones	-	-
Total Directors	101,512,300	6.72%
Balance of Company	1,409,683,385	93.28%

 

Significant Holders:

In accordance with the Disclosure and Transparency Rules ("DTR"), SolGold Plc (the "Company") was informed by Mr Warren Irwin of Rosseau Asset Management Ltd on 21 June 2017 that, in fulfilment of the obligations of Rule 5 of the DTR, and as a result of the disposal of shares with voting rights, Rosseau Asset Management Ltd has ceased to be a significant holder of the Company.

Other changes to the significant holders are as outlined below:

Party	Current interest in existing Ordinary Shares	Number of new Ordinary Shares allotted in this issue	Interest in Ordinary Shares following this issue	Interest in Ordinary Shares following this issue as a %
DGR Global Ltd	204,151,800	-	204,151,800	13.51%
Tenstar Trading Ltd	143,206,062	-	143,206,062	9.48%
Newcrest International	143,236,661	76,535,610	219,772,271	14.54%
Guyana Goldfields Inc	125,000,000	-	125,000,000	8.27%
Dmyant B Sangha*	47,106,690	-	47,106,690	3.12%

 *includes direct and indirect holdings

By order of the Board

Karl Schlobohm

Company Secretary

CONTACTS:

Mr Nicholas Mather                                                                                       Tel: [phone]

SolGold Plc (Executive Director)                                                               [phone]

[e-mail]

Mr Karl Schlobohm                                                                                         Tel: [phone]

SolGold Plc (Company Secretary)

[e-mail]

Mr Ewan Leggat / Mr Richard Morrison                                                Tel: [phone]

SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP (NOMAD and Broker)

[e-mail] 

Follow us on twitter @SolGold_plc

 

NOTES TO EDITORS

SolGold is a Brisbane, Australia based, AIM‐listed (SOLG) copper gold exploration and future development company with assets in Ecuador, Solomon Islands and Australia.  SolGold's primary objective is to discover and define world‐class copper‐gold deposits.  The Board and Management Team have substantial vested interests in the success of the Company as shareholders as well as strong track records in the areas of exploration, mine appraisal and development, investment, finance and law.  SolGold's experience is augmented by state of the art geophysical and modelling techniques and the guidance of porphyry copper and gold expert Dr Steve Garwin.

SolGold was shortlisted as a nominee for the Mining Journal Explorer Achievement Award for 2016. The Company announced USD54m in capital raisings in September 2016 involving Maxit Capital LP, Newcrest International Ltd and DGR Global Ltd, and a USD41.2m raising in June of 2017 largely from Newcrest International with USD1.2m raised from Ecuadorean investors.  All of these raisings were undertaken at substantial premiums to previous raisings, and SolGold has circa USD70 million in available cash to continue the exploration and development of its flagship Cascabel Project.

Mr Craig Jones joined the SolGold Board on 3 March 2017, nominated to the Board of SolGold by Newcrest Mining, now a 14.54% shareholder in SolGold.  Mr Jones is a Mechanical Engineer and is currently the Executive General Manager Wafi-Golpu (Newcrest-Harmony MMJV).  He has held various senior management and executive roles within the Newcrest Group, including General Manager Projects, General Manager Cadia Valley Operations, Executive General Manager Projects and Asset Management, Executive General Manager Australian and Indonesian Operations, Executive General Manager Australian Operations and Projects, and Executive General Manager Cadia and Morobe Mining Joint Venture.  Prior to joining Newcrest, Mr Jones worked for Rio Tinto.

Cascabel, SolGold's 85% owned "World Class" flagship copper‐gold porphyry project, is located in northern Ecuador on the under‐explored northern section of the richly endowed Andean Copper Belt.  SolGold owns 85% of Exploraciones Novomining S.A. ("ENSA") and approximately 11% of TSX‐V‐listed Cornerstone Capital Resources ("Cornerstone"), which holds the remaining 15% of ENSA, the Ecuadorian registered company which holds 100% of the Cascabel concession.

The investments by Newcrest for 14.54% of SolGold, and the investments into SolGold by Guyana Goldfields, Maxit Capital and its clients, endorses Ecuador as an exploration and mining destination, the management team at SolGold, the dimension, size and scale of the growing Alpala, and the prospectivity of Cascabel and its multiple targets.  The gold endowment, location, infrastructure, logistics are important competitive advantages offered by the project.

To date SolGold has completed geological mapping, soil sampling, rock saw channel sampling, geochemical and spectral alteration mapping over 25km², along with an additional 9km² of Induced Polarisation and 14km² Magnetotelluric "Orion" surveys over the Alpala cluster and Aguinaga targets.

SolGold has completed over 39,000m of drilling and expended over USD45.6M on the program, which includes corporate costs and investments into Cornerstone.  This has been accomplished with a workforce of up to 176 Ecuadorean workers and geoscientists, and 6 expatriate Australian geoscientists.  The results of 26 holes drilled (including re-drilled holes) and assayed to date have produced some of the greatest drill hole intercepts in porphyry copper-gold exploration history, as indicated by Hole 12 (CSD-16-012) returning 1560m grading 0.59% copper and 0.54 g/t gold including, 1044m grading 0.74% copper and 0.54 g/t gold.  The average grade of all metres drilled to date on the project currently stands at 0.32% copper and 0.27 g/t gold.  Intensive diamond drilling is planned for the next 12 months with 10 drill rigs expected to be operational by early 2018, targeting over 90,000m of drilling per annum.

Cascabel is characterised by fifteen (15) identified targets, "World Class" drilling intersections over 1km in length at potentially economic grades, and high copper and gold grades in richer sections, as well as logistic advantages in location, elevation, water supply, proximity to roads, port and power services; and a progressive legislative approach to resource development in Ecuador. 

To date, SolGold has drill tested 4 of the 15 targets, being Alpala Northwest, Alpala Central, Hematite Hill, and Alpala Southeast.  Currently drill testing of Alpala Northwest, Alpala Central and Alpala Southeast targets is underway, with drill testing of the Aguinaga target to commence in August 2017.

The Alpala deposit is open in multiple directions and the mineralised corridor marked for drill testing of the greater Alpala cluster occurs over a 2.2km strike length from Trivinio in the northwest to Cristal in the southeast.  The mineralised corridor is known to be prospective over approximately 700m width. 

High priority targets within the Alpala cluster, at Moran approximately 700m to the north, and at Aguinaga approximately 2.3km north east, are closely modelled by 3D MVI magnetic signatures that currently encompass over 15Bt of magnetic rock.  Based on a strong spatial and genetic relationship between copper sulphides and magnetite, this body of magnetic rock is considered to be highly prospective for significant copper and gold mineralisation, and requires drill testing.

SolGold is focussing on extending the dimensions of the Alpala deposit including Hematite Hill, Alpala South East, Cristal, Alpala Northwest and Trivinio before completing a resource statement and drill testing of the other key targets within the Cascabel concession at Aguinaga, Tandayama-America, Alpala West, Carmen, Alpala East, Moran, Parambas, and Chinambicito.

The Company is currently planning further metallurgical testing and completion of an independent Pre-Feasibility Study at Cascabel.  SolGold is investigating both high tonnage open cut and underground block caving operations, as well as a high grade / low tonnage initial underground development towards the economic development of the copper gold deposit/s at Cascabel.

Drill hole intercepts have been updated to reflect current commodity prices, using a data aggregation method, defined by copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample.  Copper equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of 0.63, determined using an updated copper price of USD3.00/pound and an updated gold price of USD1300/ounce.  True widths of down hole intersections are estimated to be approximately 25-50%.

Following a comprehensive review of the geology and prospectivity of Ecuador, SolGold and its subsidiaries have also applied for additional exploration licences in Ecuador over a number of promising porphyry copper gold targets throughout the Country.  SolGold is negotiating external funding options which will provide the Company with the ability to have some of these projects fully funded by a third party while focussing on Cascabel.

In Queensland, Australia the Company is evaluating the future exploration plans for the Mt Perry, Rannes and Normanby projects, with drill testing of the Normanby project planned for the coming quarter.  Joint venture agreements are being investigated for a joint venture partner to commit funds and carry out exploration to earn an interest in the tenements.

SolGold retains interests in its original theatre of operations, Solomon Islands in the South West Pacific, where the 100% owned, but as yet undrilled, Kuma prospect on the island of Guadalcanal exhibits surface lithocap characteristics which are traditionally indicative of a large metal rich copper gold intrusive porphyry system.  SolGold intends in the future to apply intellectual property and experience developed in Ecuador to target additional "World Class" copper gold porphyries at Kuma and other targets in Ecuador and Argentina.

SolGold is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  The Company listed on London's AIM Market in 2006, under the AIM code 'SOLG' and currently has a total of 1,511,195,685 ordinary shares issued, together with 33,975,884 options exercisable at 28p and 11,975,884 options exercisable at 14p.

 

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