Tuesday’s small cap highlights most definitely came from the mining sector, where big deals are suddenly flowing.
As Proactive’s mining expert Alastair Ford pointed out, it has been a long hiatus for the sector with no corporate activity of any real significance at the junior level for nearly seven years, but deals are now popping up.
Solgold (LON:SOLG) is on the block, as major miners and investment specialists have bid up value of its Cascabel copper property in Ecuador to beyond £200 mln.
Eurasia Mining (LON:EUA) has just signed a US$176 mln turnkey development contract for Monchetundra, an asset that for regulatory reasons its unable to say much about at all.
Savannah Resources Plc (LON:SAV) expects to begin a scoping study immediately on its enlarged heavy minerals sands project in Mozambique having brokered a new deal to combine assets with mining giant Rio Tinto PLC (LON:RIO).
The commercials remain broadly similar to the original agreement to bring together the projects, which are next to each other and are effectively component parts of the same deposit.
To speed up the process, Savannah’s Jangamo property and Rio’s Chilubane and Mutamba areas will go into a consortium company at a later date, likely to be after the grant of a mining licence.
Elsewhere in the sector, Metal Tiger Plc (LON:MTR) has announced a boardroom restructuring.
A new chief executive has been appointed and current chief Paul Johnson become a consultant to oversee the expansion of the asset trading business. The rationale behind the move is that the firm is in good position and the resource sector is about to enter a recovery phase and it wants to give returns back to shareholders.
Atalaya Mining Plc (LON:ATYM, TSE:AYM), the Spanish mining group formerly known as EMED, told investors that output from Proyecto Riotinto doubled in the third quarter as ramp up operations continue.
Greatland Gold plc (LON:GGP) has started drilling at the Ernest Giles gold project in Western Australia and expects the programme to take six weeks with assays to follow. It is hoped the work - 6,000 metres of wide-spaced drilling - will provide targets for follow up exploration.
Demand for Midatech Pharma Plc (LON:MTPH, NASDAQ:MTP) shares was strong in today’s share placing. Plans to raise “not less than” £12mln actually turned into a £16mln fund-raising, as 14.55mln shares were placed at 110p a share, some 22p below last night’s closing price.
The shares placed represent around 43.4% of the existing share capital of the speciality pharmaceutical company.
Berkeley Energia PLC (LON:BKY) said initial infrastructure development at its Salamanca uranium mine in Spain was underway, paving the way for the main build next year. Work has begun on a 5.2km road deviation, the raw water dam and development of pedestrian footpaths.
Hummingbird Resources PLC (LON:HUM) has started groundwork at Yanfolila in Mali, as construction of the new gold mine moves into its main phase. First concrete pouring is expected later this month and the project remains on schedule for first gold pour by the end of 2017, the company said.
Dan Betts, chief executive, said that getting the building work started was an important milestone.
Oil and gas junior Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) was again in the spotlight as a large UK financial institution wishing to take an equity stake in Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) has bought 10mln share warrants from shareholder Greenberry.
The transaction took place on Monday, October 10, and was priced at 50p per warrant, making the deal worth £5mln.
It will cost the financial institution 30p to exercise the warrants, and therefore its ‘buy in’ price for the new Sound Energy equity would equate to 80p per share, a discount of nearly 6% to Monday’s closing price on AIM.
Shares in clean fuel specialist ITM Power plc (LON:ITM) raced up 6% after the group said it had opened its second hydrogen refuelling station (HRS) in Rainham on the Thames Gateway.
The site is the first of its kind using solar energy from a solar photovoltaic array at the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence (CEME) just off the A13 linking City Airport and the M25.
It will make renewable hydrogen on-site and is the second of three UK stations to be deployed as part of the pan European HyFive project.
Under this plan, there will be 65 more stations across London and beyond by 2020.