Subscription and Placing to raise £8.25m

RNS Number : 7348J

IronRidge Resources Limited

30 June 2017

 

30 June 2017

IronRidge Resources Limited

(AIM: IRR)

 Subscription and Placing to raise £8.25 million

IronRidge Resources Limited ("IronRidge" or the "Company") is pleased to announce today a subscription for, and placing of, in aggregate, 23,553,767 new ordinary shares in the Company at a price of 35 pence per share (the "Issue Price"), to raise approximately £8.25 million before expenses.

Binding commitments to subscribe (the "Subscription") for a total of 20,658,053 new ordinary shares (the "Subscription Shares") at the Issue Price have been received from the Company's three largest shareholders, being Assore Limited, Sumitomo Corporation, DGR Global Limited, the Company's executive chairman, Nicholas Mather, the Company's chief executive officer, Vincent Mascolo, and other subscribers. In addition to the Subscription, the Company has also placed (the "Placing") 2,895,714 new ordinary shares (the "Placing Shares") at the Issue Price with a number of new shareholders.

Details of the Subscription and Placing

The issue of the Subscription Shares and the Placing Shares have been allotted conditional, inter alia, on their admission to trading on AIM.

An application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the Subscription Shares and the Placing Shares, which will rank pari passu with the Company's existing issued ordinary shares, to be admitted to trading on AIM. Dealings in the Placing Shares are expected to commence at 8:00 a.m. on 6 July 2017 and dealings in the Subscription Shares are expected to commence at 8.00am on or around 14 July 2017.

Following the issue of the Placing Shares the Company's total issued share capital will comprise 241,808,105 ordinary shares. In accordance with FCA Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules ("DTRs"), the Company has 241,808,105 Ordinary Shares in issue, each share carrying the right to one vote. The Company does not hold any ordinary shares in Treasury. A further announcement in accordance with the DTRs will be made following the issue of the Subscription Shares.

Use of proceeds

It is intended that the net proceeds of the Placing of approximately £8.20m will contribute to working capital and the ongoing development of the Company's pipeline of projects in emerging frontier provinces.

Related party transaction

The Subscription by each of Assore Limited, Sumitomo Corporation, DGR Global Limited, Nick Mather and Vincent Mascolo constitute related party transactions under the London Stock Exchange's AIM Rules for Companies. With the exception of Nicholas Mather, Vincent Mascolo, Kenichiro Tsubaki (a nominee of Sumitomo Corporation), Bastiaan Van Aswegen and Alistair McAdam (both nominees of Assore Limited), the Company's directors consider, having consulted with its nominated adviser, that the terms of the transaction are fair and reasonable insofar as its shareholders are concerned.

Revised shareholdings following Subscription

Following the issue of the Subscription Shares, the revised shareholdings of the following substantial shareholders and directors will be:

	Number of shares	Percentage of enlarged share capital
Assore Limited	77,916,667	29.70
DGR Global Limited	68,522,667	26.10
Sumitomo Corporation	30,543,568	11.64
Nick Mather	1,703,629	0.65
Vincent Mascolo	8,900,000	3.40

Vincent Mascolo, Chief Executive Officer of IronRidge, said:

"We have made considerable progress over the last year, most notably with the expansion of the Company's portfolio of gold exploration licences and discovering exceptionally high-grade and broad lithium pegmatite at the Cape Coast Project in Ghana. This proposed fundraise underpins the directors' plans to further develop IronRidge's assets and drive value for all shareholders.

"The exceptional response to our capital raise is a resounding endorsement of the Company's achievements over the past 12 months, value built to date and expectations for the future. The capital raised will allow us to accelerate our plans to grow the business rapidly across Africa and Australia.

"We would like to thank our three largest shareholders for their continued support and welcome our new shareholders to the register. We look forward to updating the market on our further developments in due course."

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT CONTAINS INSIDE INFORMATION FOR THE PURPOSES OF ARTICLE 7 OF THE MARKET ABUSE REGULATION EU 596/2014 ("MAR"). IN ADDITION, MARKET SOUNDINGS (AS DEFINED IN MAR) WERE TAKEN IN RESPECT OF THE MATTERS CONTAINED IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, WITH THE RESULT THAT CERTAIN PERSONS BECAME AWARE OF SUCH INSIDE INFORMATION AS PERMITTED BY MAR. THAT INSIDE INFORMATION IS SET OUT IN THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AND HAS BEEN DISCLOSED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE IN ACCORDANCE WITH PARAGRAPH 7 OF ARTICLE 17 OF MAR.  UPON THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT, THE INSIDE INFORMATION IS NOW CONSIDERED TO BE IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND SUCH PERSONS SHALL THEREFORE CEASE TO BE IN POSSESSION OF INSIDE INFORMATION IN RELATION TO THE COMPANY AND ITS SECURITIES.

 For any further information please contact:

IronRidge Resources Limited
Vincent Mascolo (Chief Executive Officer)	Tel: [phone]
Nicholas Mather (Executive Chairman)	Tel: [phone]
SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP	Tel: [phone]
Nominated Adviser and Broker
Jeff Keating Caroline Rowe Yellow Jersey PR Limited Charles Goodwin Harriet Jackson	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

IronRidge Resources is an AIM listed mineral exploration company with frontier assets in both Australia and West Africa, with two province scale projects in Gabon, and promising and advanced titanium and bauxite projects in Queensland Australia.  IronRidge's corporate strategy is to create and sustain shareholder value through the discovery of world-class and globally demanded commodities.

Australia

Monogorilby is prospective for province scale titanium and bauxite with an initial maiden resource of 54.9MT of premium DSO bauxite Monogorilby is located in central Queensland, within a short trucking distance of the rail system leading north to the Port of Bundaberg.  It is also located within close proximity of the active Queensland Rail network heading south towards the Port of Brisbane.

May Queen is located in Central Queensland within IRRs wholly owned Monogorilby license package and is highly prospective for gold.  Historic drilling completed during the 1980s intersected multiple high-grade gold intervals including 2m @ 73.4 g/t Au (including 1m at 145g/t), 4m @ 38.8g/t Au (at end of hole) and 3m @ 18.9g/t Au, over an approximate 100m strike hosting numerous parallel vein systems, open to the north-west and south-east.

Wholly owned Quaggy contains highly anomalous platinum, palladium, nickel, cobalt and copper exploration targets and is located in Central Queensland within a short trucking distance of the dormant rail system to the Port of Bundaberg.  It is also located within close proximity of the active Queensland Rail network heading south towards the Port of Brisbane.

Gabon

Tchibanga is located in south-western Gabon, in the Nyanga Province, within 10-60km of the Atlantic coastline.  This project comprises two exploration licenses, Tchibanga and Tchibanga Nord, which cover a combined area of 3,396km² and include over 90km of prospective lithologies and the historic Mont Pele iron occurrence.

Belinga Sud is Located in the north east of Gabon in the Ogooue-Ivindo Province, approximately 400km east of the capital city of Libreville.  IRR's licence lies between the main Belinga Iron Ore Deposit, believed to be one of the world's largest untapped reserves of iron ore with an estimated 1bt of iron ore at a grade >60% Fe, and the route of the Trans Gabonese railway, which currently carries manganese ore and timber from Franceville to the Port of Owendo in Libreville.

Chad

The Company entered into an agreement with Tekton Minerals Pte Ltd of Singapore concerning its portfolio covering 1,000km² of highly prospective gold and other mineral projects in Chad, Central Africa.  IronRidge to acquire 100% of Tekton including its projects and team to advance the Dorothe, Echbara, Am Ouchar, Nabagay and Ade licenses, which host multiple, large scale gold projects. Initial trenching results at Dorothe, including 14.12g/t Au over 4m, 34.1g/t over 2m and 63.2g/t over 1m, have defined significant gold mineralised quartz veining over a confirmed 1km strike at an average of 2m and up to 5m true width across multiple stacked vein zones over a 250m wide zone with new hard-rock artisanal workings potentially extending strike to >3km.

Ghana

The Company entered into conditional joint venture arrangements with Obotan Minerals Limited, Merlink Resources Limited and Barari Developments Limited of Ghana, West Africa, securing the first access rights to acquire the historical Egyasimanku Hill spodumene rich lithium resource, estimated to be in the order of 1.48Mt at 1.67% Li₂O and surrounding tenements.  The portfolio covers some 314km² with a further identified 20km strike of pegmatite vein swarms, tenure package is also highly prospective for tin, tantalum, niobium and gold which occur as accessory minerals within the pegmatites and host formations.

Ivory Coast

The Company entered into conditional joint venture arrangements in Ivory Coast, West Africa; securing access rights to highly prospective gold mineralised structures and pegmatite occurrences covering a combined 3,110km² and 400km² area respectively.  The projects are well located within access of an extensive bitumen road network and along strike from multi-million ounce gold projects and mines.

Corporate

IronRidge made its AIM debut in February 2015, successfully securing strategic alliances with three international companies; Assore Limited of South Africa, Sumitomo Corporation of Japan and DGR Global Limited of Australia.  Assore is a high- grade iron, chrome and manganese mining specialist.  Sumitomo Corporation is a global resources, mining marketing and trading conglomerate.  DGR Global is a project generation and exploration specialist.

 

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