Savannah Resources Plc / Index: AIM / Epic: SAV / Sector: Mining
21 November 2014
Savannah Resources Plc
£1.3 million Cash Placing for Copper and Heavy Mineral Sands Projects
Savannah Resources plc, the AIM listed exploration company, advises that it has raised approximately £1.3 million cash (before expenses) through the placing ('Placing') of 29,483,704 new ordinary shares at a placing price of 4.45p per ordinary share ('Placing Shares') with both new and existing investors. RFC Ambrian Limited acted as broker to the Placing.
Overview
· Strong pro-forma cash position of £2.3 million following Placing for £1.3m cash
· The Placing funds will be utilised for general working capital and to:
o Fast-track exploration and development of the Company's copper portfolio (Blocks 4, 5 & 6) located in the mineral rich Oman Ophiolite belt, one of the best Ophiolite belts in the world - work will include flying a major airborne geophysical programme in the first half of 2015 and drilling
o Advancing the Jangamo Heavy Mineral Sands project in Mozambique towards defining a JORC compliant resource by end of 2014
· The placing price of 4.45p represents a discount of 12% to the 20 day VWAP
Savannah's Chief Executive Officer, David Archer, said, "Following the expansion of our copper initiatives in Oman this week with the addition of the highly prospective Block 4 copper project, the Placing provides us with a very comfortable level of cash and current assets that will be applied to accelerating the tempo of exploration and evaluation of our copper projects in Oman; and to advancing our highly prospective Jangamo heavy minerals sands project in Mozambique. Our major near-term objectives are to firstly announce a JORC Mineral Resource Estimate for our Jangamo project late in December, followed by ground geophysics and drilling on Block 5 and the flying of a VTEM survey over Block 4 to further prove the prospectivity of these highly exciting copper projects."
Details of Placing and Adviser Service Agreement
The Placing will be in two tranches as follows: Tranche 1 - an amount of £642,313.59 for 14,434,012 Ordinary Shares at a price of 4.45p per share; Tranche 2 - an amount of £669,711.35 for 15,049,692 Ordinary Shares at a price of 4.45p per share. Tranche 2 is subject to shareholder approval at a General Meeting which will be announced separately. In addition to the Placing, Savannah will be issuing 179,775 Ordinary Shares to the Company's advisers in lieu of fees at a price of 4.45p per share ("Adviser Issue").
Application will be made for the Placing shares and Adviser Issue shares, which will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares in the Company, to be admitted to trading on AIM ('Admission'). It is expected that Admission will become effective and dealings will commence as follows: Tranche 1 at 8.00 a.m. on or around 26 November 2014; Tranche 2 and Adviser Issue at 8.00 a.m. on or around 9 December 2014. Following Admission of both tranches and the Adviser Issue, the total issued share capital will consist of 221,933,759 ordinary shares. As such the total number of voting rights in the Company will be 221,933,759 ordinary shares. This number may be used by shareholders 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 FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.
The net proceeds of the Placing will be used by the Group to fund initial geophysical work and drilling on its copper exploration projects in Oman and will be utilised towards the definition of a JORC compliant resource at its Jangamo heavy minerals sands project in Mozambique, as well as for general working capital purposes.
The Company's cash position at 20 November 2014 was £1.0 million and does not include the proceeds of the Placing.
**ENDS**
For further information please visit www.savannahresources.com or contact:
David Archer |
Savannah Resources plc |
Tel: +44 20 7389 5019 |
James Biddle (Nominated Adviser) Charlie Cryer (Corporate Broker) |
RFC Ambrian Limited |
Tel: +44 20 3440 6800 |
Felicity Winkles/ Charlotte Heap |
St Brides Media & Finance Ltd |
Tel: +44 20 7236 1177 |
Notes
Savannah Resources Plc (AIM: SAV) is a growth oriented, multi-commodity, exploration and development company. It has an 80% shareholding in Matilda Minerals Limitada which operates the Jangamo exploration project in a world class mineral sands province in Mozambique which borders Rio Tinto's Mutamba deposit, one of two major deposits Rio Tinto has defined in Mozambique, which collectively have an exploration target of 7-12Bn tonnes at 3-4.5% THM1 (published in 2008).
Savannah has interests in three copper projects in the highly prospective Semail Ophiolite Belt in Oman. The projects, which have an Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.7Mt @ 2.2% copper and high grade intercepts of up to 56.35m at 6.21% Cu, provide Savannah with an excellent opportunity to potentially evolve into a mid-tier copper producer in a relatively short time frame. Together with its Omani partners, Savannah aims to outline further mineral resources to provide the critical mass for a central operating plant to develop the deposits.
In addition, Savannah owns a 19.7% strategic shareholding in Alecto Minerals Plc which provides Savannah with exposure to both the highly prospective Kossanto Gold Project in the prolific Kenieba inlier in Mali and also to the Wayu Boda and Aysid Meketel gold / base metal projects in Ethiopia for which Alecto has a joint venture with Centamin Plc. Under this joint venture, Centamin Plc is committing up to US$14m in exploration funding to earn up to 70% of each project.
