Panthera Resources plc (LON:PAT), the gold exploration and development company with assets in India and West Africa, has announced that it has arranged an equity capital fundraise with existing and institutional investors for approximately £1.06 million by way of a placing and subscription of a total of 14,131,664 new ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the Company at a price of 7.5 pence per share. Allenby Capital Limited and Novum Securities Limited are acting as brokers in connection with the Fundraising.
Highlights
· Capital raising will fund the planned Bassala drilling programme in Q2 2022
· Planned Bassala drilling programmes follow the significant gold discovery in 2021
· Report on geological interpretation and priority drilling targets, following the 2021 drilling programme, to be announced in due course
Commenting on the announcement, Mark Bolton, Managing Director of Panthera Resources said:
“The drilling in 2021 was essentially “geochemical drilling” and has only targeted the upper weathered zone and at a very broad line spacing of minimum 200m with holes generally 50m apart. Many of the intercepts were at the end of drill holes, showing the mineralisation is open at depth and representing excellent targets for deeper drilling. In this respect, the numerous significant intercepts are considered to be highly encouraging.
The drilling programme planned for 2Q 2022 will test this known mineralisation with deeper and closer spaced drilling, aimed at identifying zones of coherent mineralisation that may represent resource definition targets.
In addition to the Bassala drilling, our partner, Diamond Fields Resources Inc is planning a significant drilling programme at Labola in 2Q 2022. The programme is targeting a substantial upgrade to the maiden resource of 634,000 ounces as announced in late 2021.”
Details of the Placing and Subscription
The Fundraising comprises a placing of 9,564,998 New Ordinary Shares and a subscription of 4,566,666 New Ordinary Shares. The Fundraising has been conducted as a private placement and subscription under the Company’s existing allotment and pre-emption disapplication authorities and participation has not been made available to members of the public. The Fundraising is conditional, inter alia, on admission of the New Ordinary Shares to trading on AIM becoming effective.
The Company has entered into Fundraising agreements with the Brokers under which they have agreed to use their reasonable endeavours to procure subscribers for the New Ordinary Shares at the Placing Price. The Fundraising has not been underwritten. Pursuant to the Fundraising Agreements with the Brokers, the Company will issue 400,000 options exercisable at 7.5 pence on or before 12 April 2024.
The Fundraising Agreements contain, inter alia, customary undertakings and warranties given by the Company in favour of the Brokers as to the accuracy of information contained in this announcement and other matters relating to the Company. The Brokers may terminate the Fundraising Agreements in specified circumstances prior to Admission, including, inter alia, for material breach of the Fundraising Agreements or any other warranties contained in them and in the event of certain force majeure events occurring.
Admission and total voting rights
Application will be made in due course to the London Stock Exchange plc (“LSE“) for the 14,131,664 New Ordinary Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM, which is expected to occour on or around 9 May 2022.
Upon Admission of the 14,131,664 New Ordinary Shares, the Company’s issued ordinary share capital will consist of 119,047,922 ordinary Shares with one voting right each. The Company does not hold any ordinary Shares in treasury. Therefore, the total number of ordinary Shares and voting rights in the Company will be 119,047,922. With effect from Admission, this figure may be used by Shareholders in the Company 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 Guidance and Transparency Rules.
Bassala Project
The Bassala project is located within a highly gold endowed Birimian volcano-sedimentary belt in southwestern Mali, approximately 200km south of the capital city Bamako.
The belt hosts the Kalana (Endeavour Mining, 4 Million Ounces (“Moz”)) and Kodieran (Wassoul’or, 2Moz) gold mines, both within a few kilometres of the Bassala project. The adjacent belt to the west is also well endowed with gold and hosts the Siguiri (AngloGold Ashanti (“AngloGold”), 17Moz), Tri-K (Avocet Mining, 3Moz), Kobada (African Gold Group, 3Moz), and Yanfolila (Hummingbird Resources, 2Moz) gold mines.
In the second half of 2020, the Company recommenced exploration activity at Bassala with the results of gold in soil and ground magnetic surveys announced on 26 March 2021. These surveys confirmed that two major gold anomalous trends are present, a 9-kilometre long north-northeast trending zone and a second, cross-cutting, 3-kilometre northwest-trending zone.
Following the successful gold in soil and ground magnetic surveys, the Company initiated an induced polarization (IP) survey, with the results announced on 10 June 2021. The IP survey confirmed the previous interpretations and identified:
· Several high order chargeability highs – probably indicative of disseminated sulphides at depth
· Three of the chargeability highs can be traced over 6,000m, 4,700m and 2,200m
· Many of the chargeability highs are associated with geochemical anomalies and artisanal mining activity
2021 Drilling
Reflecting the positive results from the IP survey, the Company initiated its maiden drilling programme at Bassala in June 2021 (“Phase 1“). This was terminated in July 2021 due to the onset of the wet season with a total of 9,997m air core (AC) drilling completed in 164 drill holes and 392m reverse circulation (RC) drilling completed in 4 drill holes. The drilling identified widespread gold mineralisation from the broad spaced, minimum 200m x 50m drill pattern that only penetrated to the base of weathering. Further details of this drilling may be found in the RNS announcements dated 24 August 2021, 10 September 2021 and 30 September 2021.
Given the excellent results from the Phase 1 drilling programme, the Company continued the drilling programme in November 2021, after the wet season (“Phase 2“). This drilling programme, mainly situated in the northern part of the license area, consisting of 8,546m drilling in 152 AC drill holes, was completed in late December 2021. Further details of the Phase 2 drilling may be found in the RNS announcement dated 17 February 2022.
Better drilling intercepts from the Phase 1 and Phase 2 programme include:
· 20m @ 2.12 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold (Au) from 10m incl. 10m @ 3.79g/t Au from 20m
· 10m @ 3.45g/t Au from 60m incl. 6m @ 6.59g/t Au from 60m
· 5m @ 5.10g/t Au from 15m
· 5m @ 2.75g/t Au from 55m
· 45m @ 0.57g/t Au from 25m incl. 5m @ 2.53g/t Au from 40m
· 30m @ 0.88g/t Au from 20m incl. 5m @ 3.18g/t Au from 20m
· 20m @ 0.75g/t Au from 15m incl. 5m @ 1.92g/t Au from 15m
· 10m @ 0.96g/t Au from 35m incl. 5m @ 1.44g/t Au from 35m
· 25m @ 0.51g/t Au from 15m incl. 5m @ 2.07g/t Au from 20m
· 5m @ 1.98g/t Au from 40m
· 6m @ 1.59g/t Au from 70m (end of hole)
· 5m @ 1.41g/t Au from 35m (end of hole)
· 25m @ 0.87g/t Au from surface incl. 5m @ 2.96g/t Au from 10m
· 2m @ >8.00g/t Au from 55m at end of hole (re-assays at 3.01, 8.40 and 1.06g/t Au)
· 5m @ 1.10g/t Au from 5m
· 16m @ 0.90g/t Au from 40m at end of hole incl. 5m @ 2.58g/t Au from 40m
· 55m @ 0.29g/t Au from 5m at end of hole incl. 5m @ 1.05g/t Au from 30m
· 5m @ 2.45g/t Au from 5m
· 5m @ 1.19g/t Au from 35m
Directors’ Participation
Certain Directors of the Company have agreed to subscribe for 300,000 New Ordinary Shares at the Placing Price in the Fundraising. Set out below are details of the Director Participation. The settlement of the Director Participation is anticipated to be completed on or around 9 May 2022.
| Director | Position | New Ordinary Shares being subscribed | Shareholding following Admission |
| Timothy James Hargreaves | Non-Executive Director | 100,000 | 2,292,410 |
| Michael Lindsay Higgins | Non-Executive Chairman | 200,000 | 8,325,923 |
