Article by Sean Smith courtesy of the West Australian.
Catalyst Metals has raised $22 million in an oversubscribed placement to support its WA gold consolidation play.
The Melbourne-based company is expected to emerge from a two-day trading halt on Friday with confirmation it has raised $2m of oversubscriptions on top of the $20m it was seeking at $1 a share.
The raising was a condition of last week’s agreed $C54 million ($58m) takeover bid for Canada’s Superior Gold, an agreed deal that will deliver the Plutonic underground mine to Catalyst.
The scrip bid is effectively a reverse takeover, with Superior shareholders to emerge with nearly 80 per cent of the combined company.
The Plutonic acquisition is the final leg of Catalyst’s consolidation of the Marymia-Plutonic belt in the northern Mid West, providing three million tonnes a year of treatment capacity to service the company’s expanded regional position.
Catalyst, 25 per cent owned by Gina Rinehart and St Barbara, already owns the producing Henty goldmine in Tasmania and has been building acreage over Victoria’s Bendigo gold centre as part of a focus on historically high-grade goldfields.
Plutonic, which has been in continuous production since 1995, has been producing at a rate of about 120,000 ounces a year.
Catalyst has told investors that proceeds from the raising will support its WA play and the Henty mine.
Its shares last traded at $1.28, valuing the group at $192m.
