London South East were delighted to be joined live from Australia by Greatland Gold (GGP) Managing Director Shaun Day on the day they announced a massive debt/equity raise and hired some senior mining talent to help take the business forward.

GGP have raised almost £200M in a mix of debt and equity to fully fund Greatland's 30% stake in Havieron to completion. And they have hired some serious mining talent to strengthen the board.

Shaun began with the board: "We have three directors joining us in due course. Jimmy Wilson was Head of Iron Ore at BHP and had a long and distinguished career there. He joins us as Executive Director and has a formidable pedigree in mining operations. He can really help us around the time of receiving the Feasibility Study, can help us to build the team and we can have his insights on the development of Havieron.

Mark Barnaba was former Deputy Head of Fortescue Metals (a Top 10 ASX A$50 billion business) and he joins as Chairman. Elizabeth Gaines was former Fortescue CEO and joins as Deputy Chair.

In order to raise the debt element Greatland was required to have A$60M in equity, and this strategic investment was raised from Wyloo Metals, a well known Australian privately owned metals company which takes long term stakes in mining projects.

They were then able to work on putting together a raft of banks prepared to lend, and in turn they choose the three banks they wished to work with. They now have binding letters of commitment for $220M from HSBC, ANZ and ING, all Tier-1 banks in their own right, at 'a competitive rate of 3.5 over benchmark' with benchmark around 2%. This will pay off the Newcrest loan which is charged at 8% over benchmark, "so a massive saving there straight away and a huge step towards fully funding (our 30% stake in) Havieron."

A dual listing on the ASX is under consideration.