Predictive Discovery Limited (ASX: PDI) has received commitments of A$26.5 million in a placement to institutional, sophisticated and professional investors to fund a major drilling campaign at the Bankan Gold Project in Guinea, West Africa.
The Placement was narrowly focussed on a number of tier-1 North American funds with a track record of strong success investing in emerging West African gold companies. The placement was also targeted at highly accomplished Ultra High Net Worth resource investors. Euroz Hartleys Limited and SprottCapital Partners LP were Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners to the Placement.
Placement proceeds will be applied to drive rapid growth in Resources with at least 110,000m of drilling planned over the next 12 months.
Proceeds of the Placement will also be used to deliver metallurgical testwork, the commencement of technical studies and baseline studies required for project development including social and environmental studies, and for general working capital.
Predictive has identified nine high priority near-regional targets located on interpreted ENE-WSW faults, crosscutting a newly recognised major 35km-long north-northwest structural corridor with the potential to host numerous “NE Bankan-style” discoveries.
Managing Director, Paul Roberts, said these potentially high-impact targets may now be immediately followed-up, commencing with our recent regional exploration success only 17km north of NE Bankan, at Argo where numerous high value targets are already yielding widespread high-grade gold (12m @ 9.8g/t Au and 16m @ 2.0g/t Au).
We have received overwhelming support for this placement. The strong participation by tier-1 international and domestic institutional investors, many of which have a strong track record of investing in the West African sector, reinforces our conviction that we have found a truly remarkable project at Bankan – one with a very long runway of growth ahead of it,” Mr Roberts said.
“The placement will enable us to commence by far the largest program that we have undertaken to date to deliver key project milestones at NE Bankan and Bankan Creek as well as test the numerous potentially high- impact exploration targets in the broader Bankan project, beginning with Argo where we already have high- grade in the auger over good intercepts.
“Consistent with our focus on advancing Bankan and commitment to our 100% owned portfolio in Guinea, the company is also progressing its divestment strategy for non-core assets, with opportunities for its Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire licences being progressed to minimise ongoing costs on those projects, whilst maintaining some exposure for shareholders.
“We welcome new investors to the company as part of the Placement and, once again, acknowledge the strong support received from many of our existing shareholders.”