PERTH: BlackEarth Minerals NL has successfully completed a bookbuild and secured commitments from investors in Australia to subscribe for a minimum of approximately 28.413 million new fully paid ordinary shares in the company to raise gross proceeds of A$1.42 million before costs.
MacMillan Capital was appointed as lead broker to the placement.
BlackEarth Minerals will issue 28,413,880 new fully paid ordinary shares at an issue price of $0.05 per share (a 9.2% discount to the 5 day volume weighted average) to Australian institutional and professional investors to raise minimum gross proceeds of $1.42 million before costs.
The new shares will be placed within the Company’s 15% placement capacity under ASX Listing Rule 7.1 and a further 10% within ASX Listing Rule 7.1A and without disclosure under the Corporations Act.
The Placement is not subject to shareholder approval and the new shares will rank equally with the Company’s existing fully paid ordinary shares. The Placement shares are expected to be issued on or about 8 October 2020.
The funds raised by the Placement will, together with the Company’s existing funds, be used to commence some or all of the work to progress the definitive feasibility study for the Maniry Graphite Project and for working capital purposes:
· Exploration activitiesat the Maniry Project and Donnelly River Prospect
· Hydrology and geotechnical work
· Further bulk metallurgical test work testing
· Independent social, community and environmental studies
· Further testing and evaluation of downstream processing opportunities
BlackEarth’s Managing Director, Tom Revy, said: “The Board of BEM is excited about a number of developing opportunities for the Company and these funds will be utilised specifically for purpose of advancing the development and growing the value of our existing assets. We’re pleased with the renewed and growing interest in the graphite sector and we believe our Donnelly River assets also offer a unique opportunity to shareholders. Technical and other resources will be applied to assessing these assets in the immediate term. Additional production and testing of concentrate for the purposes of undertaking detailed downstream battery, refractory and expandable product test work which will be used for definitive offtake discussions. We look forward to updating the market with further developments in the near future”.