Metal Tiger Plc (LON:MTR), the natural resource investor, has closed its initial investment of A$500,280 into Australian group Cobre Pty Ltd, representing around a 15% stake.
Cobre holds the volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) Perrinvale Copper project in central Western Australia, where an airborne geophysical survey is imminent.
READ: Metal Tiger to buy 20% of Australian copper explorer Cobre in IPO fundraise
Metal Tiger, subject to conditions, has also agreed to subscribe for more shares under Cobre's planned initial public offering (IPO), investing a further A$2 million to take a total stake of 19.99%.
"We are delighted to have completed this investment into Cobre and to see rapid progress being achieved at the world-class Perrinvale copper project," said Michael McNeilly, the chief executive of Metal Tiger on Monday.
"The helicopter-borne electromagnetic geophysical survey programme should help to accelerate the identification of additional VMS style high-grade copper zinc gold mineralisation within this highly prospective area. We see significant follow-on potential at Perrinvale and look forward to seeing this being realised in the months ahead.”
A 1,000m drilling programme at Perrinvale earlier this summer hit high grade VMS base metal and gold mineralisation at shallow depth at the Schwabe prospect, with highlight results including 5 metres (m) at 9.8% copper, 3.2 grams per ton (g/t) gold, 34.0g/t silver and 3.1% zinc from 50 metres.
The airborne survey will cover around 114 sq km covering a 22km strike length of the Panhandle Greenstone Belt, where at least eight potential base metal targets have been identified. Targets include the Schwabe prospect.
In this initial investment for 15%, Metal Tiger was issued with 6.6 million new Cobre shares at A$0.0758 each and on completion of the IPO, Metal Tiger will be able to appoint a nominee director to the board of the Cobre.
A condition of the issue of the IPO shares is that Metal Tiger will hold 19.99% in the Cobre IPO entity.