Cora Gold, the AIM-listed Mali and Senegal-focused gold miner has announced it has signed a US$21M term sheet to fund the development of its flagship Sanankoro Gold Project in southern Mali. This is conditional on completion of a Definitive Feasibility Study before the end of 2021.

The term sheet comes from Lionhead Capital Advisors, who are acting as lead investor for a consortium of investors who include the founders of LionOre Mining International (bought by Norilsk Nickel for US$6.3bn) and the initial investors in Mantra Resources Limited (bought by ROSATOM for AUD$1.2bn). Paul Quirk is both a non-exec at Cora Gold and a Founding partner of Lionhead. The Quirk family own around 34% of Cora Gold through trusts.

In an interview with London South East, Cora Gold CEO, Bert Monro told us: "It's a fantastic day, we have just signed a term sheet for US$21M from Lionhead, essentially we delivered a scoping study in January of this year which showed for US$20.6M we could build a gold mine which would make over US$24M dollars a year of free cash flow at a $1,500 gold price." Lionhead came up with a term sheet which consisted of a mix of equity, debt and convertible loan. This was then negotiated by Cora Gold and Bert is convinced this is a competitive funding deal.