Tietto Minerals Ltd (ASX:TIE) is fully funded to begin production at its Abujar Gold Project in Côte d’Ivoire after a heavily oversubscribed A$85 million two‐tranche placement.
The West-African explorer has received binding commitments for the placement through the issue of 218 million fully paid ordinary shares at A$0.39 per share.
Notably, the placement includes a material investment by Zhaojin Mining, one of China’s largest gold mining companies.
Tietto is on track for first gold at Abujar in the December quarter of 2022 and funded to continue exploration to grow gold resources with additional working capital.
“West Africa’s next gold producer”
Tietto managing director Dr Caigen Wang said: “With support for this A$85 million placement, we now have funding in place to allow us to build Abujar and transform Tietto into West Africa’s next gold producer as we bring the project into production on schedule in CY2022.
“Abujar is an exciting and robust gold project, as demonstrated by our definitive feasibility study delivered last month, and we are excited to enter this new chapter of Tietto’s history.
“We have commenced a US$8.65 million early works program including front end engineering and design, site and camp construction and we have assembled an experienced project build team that can ensure we deliver gold production at Abujar on schedule and on budget.”
Placement summary
This heavily oversubscribed placement received strong support from Australian and offshore institutional and wholesale investors and complements Tietto’s debt strategy with Taurus to deliver up to US$140 million in project development funding.
The placement price represents a 12.4% discount to the last close price and a 13.8% discount to the 5-day volume weighted average price of the company’s shares to November 17, 2021.
New shares issued under the placement will rank equally with existing ordinary shares from the date of issue.
Settlement of the first tranche of the placement is expected to take place on or around November 26, 2021, with allotment on or around November 29, 2021.
The second tranche of the placement will be subject to shareholder approval and is expected to settle on or around January 14, 2022, with allotment on or around January 17, 2022.
Petra Capital Pty Limited acted as sole lead manager and sole bookrunner, along with partners Jett Capital Advisors, LLC, who acted as co‐manager to the placement.
Board share sale and option exercise
As part of the placement process, Tietto board members Caigen Wang, Paul Kitto, Francis Harper and Mark Strizek have agreed to sell a total of 6 million shares in Tietto at the placement price to institutional investors.
Importantly, the proceeds of the placement will fund the exercise of options in the company.
Wang adds: “We welcome the backing of all placement participants, including the exciting addition of Zhaojin Mining to the register, and thank our existing shareholders for their ongoing support.
“We look forward to putting investors’ money to work to deliver this exciting West African gold development story, targeting first gold production by the end of calendar year 2022.”