Fox Marble Holdings plc (LON:FOX), the AIM listed company focused on marble quarrying and finishing in Kosovo and the Balkans region has today announced that it has acquired Gulf Marble Investments Limited (Dubai) its joint venture partner based in the Prilep Alpha Quarry in Macedonia, including all the rights attached to that Company.
Under the terms of the original agreement to acquire the Prilep Alpha quarry in Macedonia in 2013, Gulf Marble Investments Limited provided the funds to acquire the license to the site and capital investment amounting to €1.7 million, and then entered into an operating agreement with Fox Marble to operate the quarry. In compensation Gulf Marble Investments Limited was provided with a royalty amounting to 40% of the gross revenues received from the sale of its block marble from the quarry. The acquisition of the quarry rights in Prilep Alpha was originally announced on the 4 July 2013.
Through the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Gulf Marble Investments Limited, Fox Marble will effectively re-acquire all the 40% gross revenue royalty, as well as all the assets and capital equipment held by the entity.
As consideration for the acquisition Fox Marble has issued an Unsecured Convertible Loan Note in the amount of €1.785 million. Under the terms of the Loan Note, the holder may elect to convert at a conversion price of 130% of the 3 month volume weighted average share price. The Loan Note is repayable from the 1 October 2020. The Loan Note carries an interest rate of Libor plus 1.5% payable annually in arrears.
Following the issue of the Convertible Loan Note detailed above the Company has a total of £2.85 million Convertible Loan Notes outstanding.
Chris Gilbert, Fox Marble Holdings plc CEO, commented “Our arrangements at the time afforded us the unique opportunity to not only acquire the rights to a white marble quarry containing the world famous white from the Prilep region of Macedonia but to develop the quarry to commercial standards. Our joint venture partners Gulf Marble have been instrumental in achieving this and we are grateful to them for helping us reach this goal. We look forward to seeing the benefits of our increased participation in the Prilep Alpha quarry feeding through to the bottom line going forward from our activities in Macedonia”
