Admission to AIM and First Day of Dealings

RNS Number : 6054O

Trident Resources Plc

02 June 2020

 

2 June 2020

TRIDENT RESOURCES PLC 

("Trident" or the "Company")

Admission to trading on AIM and First Day of Dealings

Trident Resources plc (to be renamed Trident Royalties plc), a new growth focused mining royalty and streaming company, is pleased to announce the admission of its ordinary shares of 1p each ("Ordinary Shares") to trading on the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange ("Admission"). Dealings will commence, at 8.00 a.m. today under the ticker symbol TRR and ISIN: GB00BF7J2535.

The Company's Admission to AIM follows a successful placing, raising gross proceeds of £16 million (approximately US$20 million) from the issue of 80,000,000 Ordinary Shares (the "Placing") at a price of 20p per share (the "Placing Price").

HIGHLIGHTS

· Trident plans to rapidly establish itself as a diversified mining royalty and streaming company by constructing a portfolio to broadly mirror the commodity exposure of the global mining sector, with a bias towards production or near-production assets;

· Raised gross proceeds of £16 million (approximately US$20 million) via a placing of 80,000,000 Ordinary Shares at a price of 20p per share;

· On Admission, the Company will have 103,500,000 Ordinary Shares in issue, giving it a market capitalisation at the Placing Price of approximately £20.7 million (approximately US$25.8 million);

· Once scale has been achieved, the Company expects strong cash generation to support an attractive dividend policy, providing investors with a desirable mix of inflation protection (through exposure to commodities), capital growth and income;

· Shareholder base includes leading institutional investors such as LIM Asia Special Situations Master fund, Regal Funds Management, Tribeca Investment Partners and Terra Capital Natural Resources Fund.

Adam Davidson, Chief Executive Officer of Trident commented:

"With the completion of our recently announced £16 million equity financing and AIM admission, we have developed a strong platform from which to deliver our strategy. Our focus is now on executing on our pipeline of transactions and assessing new opportunities, ranging from new primary transactions to the acquisition of existing royalty and streaming assets, as well as portfolio transactions in the secondary market. 

We look forward to life as an AIM quoted royalty and streaming company and will be updating shareholders on our further progress in due course."

James Kelly, Non-Executive Chairman of Trident commented:

"Our fundraising represents the largest equity placing associated with a new listing in any sector across the London markets in over three months, an outstanding achievement for a new offering in the context of such difficult general market conditions.  I believe that this underscores the strength of both our strategy and management team and we now look forward to executing on our growth plans.

On behalf of Trident's board of directors, I would like to extend my thanks to Adam and his team, our existing shareholders, incoming investors and our adviser team for their support, hard work and dedication in helping us get to this point."

ROYALTY & STREAMING STRATEGY

· Trident considers mining royalty and streaming assets to represent an attractive opportunity for investors, providing exposure to commodity prices with a typically lower risk profile than mining equities, allowing participation in growth from development and exploration expenditure, without the associated cost or dilution to the holder of the royalty or stream;

· Strategy to participate in what Trident believes is a strong growth market for alternative finance in the mining sector by writing new royalties and streams, as well as consolidation of existing royalties and streams available on attractive terms, taking advantage of gaps in the market under-exploited by other mining royalty and streaming companies;

· Trident aims to assemble a portfolio of royalty and streaming assets to provide investors with exposure to a mix of base and precious metals, bulk materials (excluding thermal coal) and battery metals, differentiating Trident from the majority of its peers which are exclusively, or heavily weighted, to precious metals;

· Trident will seek to acquire royalties and streams across a range of mining-friendly jurisdictions worldwide, while most other royalty and streaming companies have portfolios weighted towards mining assets located in North and South America;

· Targeting attractive small-to-mid size transactions which are often ignored in a sector dominated by large players;

· Trident believes that the acquisition and aggregation of individual royalties and streams has the potential to deliver strong returns for shareholders as assets are acquired on terms reflective of single asset risk compared with the lower risk profile of a diversified, larger scale portfolio, including diversity as to geography (lowering geopolitical risks) and commodity exposure;

· Producing royalties and streams can deliver strong and predictable cash flows, which can be leveraged through debt to enhance returns to equity and can underpin eventual dividend returns to shareholders. In this regard, the Company has entered into an exclusive mandate letter with Tribeca Global Resources Credit in relation to the arranging, underwriting and raising of an acquisition debt facility of up to approximately US$10 million;

· First royalty acquisition, expected to complete shortly, is a 1.5% free on board royalty over part of the producing Koolyanobbing Iron Ore Operation in Western Australia, operated by Mineral Resources Limited (ASX: MIN, market capitalisation approx. US$2.5 billion), providing exposure to an immediately cash generative royalty over an established asset which is currently undergoing a production increase;

· Trident has a pipeline of attractive follow-on transactions with further acquisitions expected to be announced in the near term;

· Trident intends to maintain a low overhead model, capable of supporting a larger scale business without a commensurate increase in operating expenses. In the first 12 months following Admission, total operating expenditure (excluding any deal related costs or costs associated with performance related bonus payments) are expected to be approximately US$1 million.

ADMISSION DOCUMENT  

The Admission Document prepared by the Company in connection with Admission is available at the Company's website: www.tridentroyalties.com. Hard copies of the Admission Document are also available during normal business hours at the Company's registered offices: 2 Stone Building, Lincoln's Inn London WC2A 3TH.

CHANGE OF NAME

The Company has applied to Companies House to change its name to Trident Royalties Plc. The restrictions on working that have been imposed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in a delay to the processing of change of name applications by Companies House and the Company does not have a firm date when this is expected to be completed. A further announcement will be made once the Company has received its change of name certificate and the change of name becomes effective.

TOTAL VOTING RIGHTS

For the purposes of the Financial Conduct Authority's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules ("DTRs"), following Admission, Trident will have 103,500,000 Ordinary Shares in issue with voting rights attached. Trident holds no shares in treasury. This figure of 103,500,000 may be used by shareholders in the Company 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 Company, under the DTRs.

ADVISERS

Tamesis Partners LLP, Ashanti Capital Pty Ltd and Azure Capital Ltd are acting as financial advisers to the Company and Joint Book Runners to the Placing. Grant Thornton UK LLP is acting as Nominated Adviser. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP acted as UK legal counsel, Charles Russell Speechlys LLP as legal counsel to the Nominated Adviser and Joint Book Runners and PKF Littlejohn LLP acted as reporting accountant.

For more information on the Company please visit: www.tridentroyalties.com and follow the Company o n Twitter and LinkedIn

ENQUIRIES

Trident Resources Plc Adam Davidson	www.tridentroyalties.com [phone]
Grant Thornton LLP (Nominated Adviser) Colin Aaronson/ Richard Tonthat / Seamus Fricker	www.grantthornton.co.uk [phone]
Tamesis Partners LLP (Financial Adviser and Broker) Richard Greenfield	www.tamesispartners.com [phone]
Yellow Jersey (Public Relations) Charles Goodwin	www.yellowjerseypr.com [phone]
Azure Capital Ltd (Financial Adviser) John Toll	www.azurecapital.com.au [phone]
Ashanti Capital Pty Ltd (Financial Adviser) Rob Hamilton	www.ashanticapital.com.au [phone]

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation EU No. 596/2015. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

 

END

 

 

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