Zimbabwe placing oversubscribed – Caledonia
BUSINESS REPORTER
Caledonia Mining Corporation says its Zimbabwe placing was oversubscribed after raising US$5.825m before expenses amid strong support from new and existing institutional investors giving the resources concern more headroom to invest in its three local mines.
A total of 423,951 ZDRs have been placed at the placing price of $13.74 each, the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange-listed said.
Caledonia CEO Mark Learmonth said the support from institutional investors “will help us accelerate our growth plans in Zimbabwe”.
“I am very pleased to see such strong demand from new and existing institutional investors in Zimbabwe such as Zimbabwe’s Mining Industry Pension Fund who subscribed for a significant amount of the Zimbabwe Placing,” Learmonth said.
The fundraise on the Zimbabwe placing comes after Caledonia raised US$10.6m after placing 781,749 shares with domestic and international institutional and sophisticated investors.
This means that Caledonia has raised about US$16.566m before expenses.
Caledonia said the net proceeds of the fundraise, together with the company’s existing cash reserves and the future cash to be generated from its ownership of the producing and cash generative Blanket Mine and from the Bilboes oxide operation, will strengthen its balance sheet and provide working capital flexibility to accelerate planned work at the three new gold projects in Zimbabwe.
Caledonia plans to spend US$2m of the net proceeds to fund a new feasibility study to investigate commercialisation of Bilboes, possibly through a phased development approach. Bilboes was acquired in January this year. Bilboes has produced approximately 288,000 ounces of gold since 1989.
Caledonia will inject US$6m of the fundraise proceeds for further exploration at Motapa, a large exploration property which is contiguous to the Bilboes gold project and approximately 75km north of Bulawayo.
The resources concern said it would use about US$2m of the net proceeds of the fundraise on the drilling and exploration of the claims at Maligreen, the asset Caledonia acquired in 2021.
