Vane Raises GBP 750,000
Vane Minerals PLC
05 September 2006
5 September 2006
VANE Minerals Plc (AIM: VML)
£750,000 Raised By Way Of A Convertible Loan Note
Vane Minerals Plc ('VANE' or 'the Company') is pleased to announce that it has
raised £750,000 through a convertible loan note agreement with City Natural
Resources High Yield Trust Plc and Geiger Counter Ltd, who have loaned £450,000
and £300,000 respectively.
The funds raised will be used to primarily accelerate the exploration and
development programme for the Company's portfolio of uranium properties in
Northern Arizona and South-eastern Utah and in addition to finance the
construction of a mill at the Company's producing Diablito gold-silver mine, in
Nayarit State, Mexico. This will be of great benefit to VANE, as in addition to
eliminating scheduling bottle necks at the custom mill, this facility will
greatly reduce overall costs, especially transportation costs.
The principal terms of the loan note are:
• The loan note is unsecured and has a maturity date of 30th August 2010
• The note attracts interest at 8% per annum, paid quarterly
• The loan note is convertible at the option of the holder at any time prior
to the maturity date at a price of £0.12 per share, a premium of 33% to the
share price of 9p on the day of issue (31st August 2006)
• After the initial 24-month period, if the 20-day average closing price of
the Company's shares at any time attains £0.18 or more, the Company may call
the convertible loan note for conversion at the conversion price
• The number of ordinary 10p shares to be issued upon conversion of the note
are subject to proportional adjustment to reflect stock dividends, share
splits, reverse share splits and other anti-dilutive events
• Upon a change of control involving the acquisition of voting control or
direction over 50% or more of the ordinary shares of the Company, City
Natural Resource High Yield Trust Plc / Geiger Counter Ltd has the right to
require the Company to repurchase their loan note, in whole or in part, at a
price equal to 101% of the principal amount, plus accrued and unpaid
interest thereon
Michael Spriggs, Chairman of VANE commented, 'I am delighted to be able to
announce our first fund raising undertaken since we achieved our quotation on
AIM in May 2004. Whilst the monthly income generated by our Diablito mine has
enabled us to achieve our principal objective of becoming a self-funding
exploration company, these additional funds will crucially serve to accelerate
the development of our uranium portfolio, at a time when the uranium market is
very robust. The construction of our own mill at Diablito is also an important
development for the Company because, as well as allowing us to make significant
cost savings, it will streamline our operations and give us the potential for
an increase in production, resulting in better cash-flows going forward.'
About VANE Minerals:
VANE Minerals was founded by the former international exploration team of
Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., one of the world's largest producers of
copper and gold. The team negotiated exclusive access to Freeport McMoRan's
global exploration database, made up of 7,000 plus files generated over nearly
100 years of exploration and, following the review of these files, VANE is
ideally placed to capitalise on project acquisition opportunities. The Company
has assembled a highly qualified and experienced management team with a proven
track record in exploration and development, who have spent their entire careers
searching for and defining large scale mineral deposits.
The Company's principal objective, as set out at the time of its listing in June
2004, is to be a self-funding exploration company. As such, the initial focus
has been to identify high grade gold-silver projects which can be brought into
production as quickly as possible in order to provide revenue towards funding
the development of potentially much larger projects. VANE is well on its way to
achieving this objective as production began at the Diablito mine in Mexico in
November 2005. The Company will use the revenue generated by this first
producing mine to help fund development work across its attractive portfolio of
gold, silver, copper and uranium assets in Mexico, Paraguay and the US.
For further information, please review: www.vaneminerals.com.
Enquiries:
VANE Minerals Plc Ambrian Partners Limited
Matthew Idiens Richard Brown
+44 (0) 20 7667 6322 +44 (0) 20 7776 6417
Parkgreen Communications Daniel Stewart & Co
Cathy Malins / Annabel Leather Dan Willmott
+44 (0) 20 7493 3713 +44 (0)20 7776 6550
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange