Financing secured and £300,000 invested in Vardar

RNS Number : 9808V

Beowulf Mining PLC

13 August 2020

 

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations ("MAR") (EU) No. 596/2014. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

13 August 2020

Beowulf Mining plc

("Beowulf" or the "Company")

Financing of SEK 12 million (approximately £1.0 million) secured from Nordic investors and £300,000 invested in Vardar Minerals' geophysics programme

Beowulf (AIM: BEM; Spotlight : BEO), the mineral exploration and development company, is pleased to announce that the Company has secured loan financing in Sweden of SEK 12 million (approximately £1.0 million) before expenses (the "Loan"). 

Funds will be used to restart exploration works in Kosovo, with the initial focus being geophysical surveys across the emerging Majdan Peak epithermal gold target, the objective being to define drill targets.  Plans have also been made for geophysics surveys over the remainder of the Mitrovica licence and the Viti licence, prospective for copper-gold porphyry mineralisation.

Regarding Majdan Peak, the Company recently announced, on 1 June 2020, extremely encouraging results from a soils sampling programme, and on 6 July 2020, a number of grab samples returning high-grade gold results, which correlated well with gold in soils and alteration intensity and confirmed the significant scale of the gold target, an area 1400 x 700 metres, remaining open to the east.

The Company's investment of £300,000 increases its ownership of Vardar from 42.2 per cent to 46.1 per cent.

Kurt Budge, Chief Executive Officer of Beowulf, commented:

"At a time of record high gold prices, Beowulf is delighted to announce the resumption of works at Majdan Peak, as the Vardar team seeks to define targets for drilling.

"It's a major benefit for Beowulf to be listed in Stockholm and London. I am very pleased that the Company has been well-supported by Nordic investors in this financing. Not only does Beowulf have a strong asset base in Sweden, with Kallak, we are finding ways to effectively raise finance by virtue of our Stockholm listing.  We have been eager to progress in Kosovo and this fundraise allows us to really get going.

"Beowulf has been busy over recent months. Fennoscandian Resources has been developing its business plan to strengthen its position in the emerging battery sector in Finland and, in Sweden, we have been reassessing the exploration and resource expansion potential at Kallak and we are also considering new processing options for Kallak ore.

"We have significant activity in each of our business areas and a full work programme as we continue with the year. I look forward to keeping shareholders updated on our progress." 

The Loan - Key Terms

Loan financing of SEK 12 million before expenses has been secured from Nordic investors, Formue Nord Markedsneutral A/S and Modelio Equity AB (the "Creditors").  The Loan has a fixed interest rate of 1.5 percent per started 30-day period during the duration period.  Accrued interest is non-compounding. The Loan has a commitment fee of 5 per cent and a Maturity Date of 15 January 2021.

Beowulf can repay the Loan and accrued interest at any time prior to the Maturity Date. If the Loan and accrued interest is not repaid by 15 February 2021, at the latest, the Creditors have the right to convert the Loan and accrued interest into Swedish Depository Receipts ("SDR") at a price per SDR calculated with a 10 per cent discount on the volume weighted average price ("VWAP") of the SDR during the preceding 5 trading days to the conversion decision.  Prior to entering into the Loan, Beowulf had no short or long-term interest bearing debt.

Swedish Financial Advisor

Sedermera Fondkommission has been the Swedish financial advisor to Beowulf in connection with the loan financing.

Enquiries:

Beowulf Mining plc
Kurt Budge, Chief Executive Officer	Tel: [phone]
SP Angel (Nominated Adviser & Broker)
Ewan Leggat / Soltan Tagiev	Tel: [phone]
Blytheweigh
Tim Blythe / Megan Ray	Tel: [phone]

About Beowulf Mining plc

Beowulf's strategy is to build a sustainable and innovative mining company, which creates shareholder value by developing mining assets, delivering production and generating cash flow, and in so doing meets society's ongoing need for minerals and metals.

Beowulf is developing a high-quality asset base, which is diversified by geography and commodity, enabling it to simultaneously advance several projects.

Additionally, the Board of Directors continues to look beyond the Company for opportunities that fit.

The Company's first priority remains the award of the Exploitation Concession for Kallak North, and thereafter completing the Scoping Study.  The introduction of a strategic partner/investor who understands the value of Kallak as a high-quality asset, which could be in production within four to five years, is an ongoing consideration, but does not preclude the Company from continuing to advance Kallak in the meantime.

Fennoscandian Resources ("Fennoscandian"), the Company's 100 per cent owned graphite business, is pursuing a strategy to develop a 'resource footprint' of natural flake graphite prospects that can provide 'security of supply' and enable Finland to achieve its ambition of self-sufficiency in battery manufacturing.  The Company is a recipient of Business Finland funding, which is supporting Fennoscandian to move downstream, and develop its knowledge in processing and manufacturing value-added graphite products.

The Company owns approximately 46.1 per cent  of Vardar Minerals Limited ("Vardar"), a UK registered exploration company with a focus on the metal endowed Balkan region.  Vardar holds exploration licences for the Mitrovica and Viti projects.  Both projects are located within the Tethyan Belt, a major orogenic metallogenic province for gold and base metals which extends from the Alps (Carpathians/Balkans) to Turkey, Iran and Indochina, and contains several world class discoveries.  The Tethyan Belt of south-east Europe can be regarded as Europe's chief copper-gold (lead-zinc-silver) province.

Glossary: 

Induced Polarisation (IP) - Variations in chargeability can be diagnostic, for example, when aiming to characterize a mineral deposit (e.g. Mt. Isa), where the chargeability of the mineralized zone is often higher than the host rock. Often an induced polarization (IP) experiment is performed with the Direct Current Resistivity (DCR) hence they are often called DC-IP survey. Both conductivity and chargeability distribution can be recovered from a DC-IP survey.

Cautionary Statement

Statements and assumptions made in this document with respect to the Company's current plans, estimates, strategies and beliefs, and other statements that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements about the future performance of Beowulf. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those using words such as "may", "might", "seeks", "expects", "anticipates", "estimates", "believes", "projects", "plans", strategy", "forecast" and similar expressions. These statements reflect management's expectations and assumptions in light of currently available information. They are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to , (i) changes in the economic, regulatory and political environments in the countries where Beowulf operates; (ii) changes relating to the geological information available in respect of the various projects undertaken; (iii) Beowulf's continued ability to secure enough financing to carry on its operations as a going concern; (iv) the success of its potential joint ventures and alliances, if any; (v) metal prices, particularly as regards iron ore. In the light of the many risks and uncertainties surrounding any mineral project at an early stage of its development, the actual results could differ materially from those presented and forecast in this document. Beowulf assumes no unconditional obligation to immediately update any such statements and/or forecasts.

 

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