LONDON (Alliance News) - Aureus Mining Inc on Wednesday said it has raised USD30.0 million through a private placement to strengthen its balance sheet and provide funding for the restart of operations at the New Liberty gold mine in Liberia.
Aureus said it will raise the funds through two tranches, one of 59.5 million shares and another of 331.1 million, all at 3.21 pence per share. The stock closed at 2.75p on Tuesday.
The shares will be placed with MNG Gold, a gold exploration firm with assets in Turkey, Burkina Faso and Liberia. Following the placing, MNG will have a 55% stake in Aureus Mining and will appoint three representatives to the board of the company.
In addition, Aureus will have a new senior management team in place following completion of the placing, with Serhan Umurhan to become chief executive and Geoff Eyre to be chief financial officer. Umurhan will replace current Aureus CEO David Reading, who will resign. Umurhan is the general manager of MNG Gold.
Eyre will take over from Paul Thomson, who will resign but will continue with the company for 12 months in a consultancy role. Eyre is currently the CFO of MNG Gold.
In addition to those two changes, Mehment Nazif Gunal, the owner of MNG Gold, will become the non-executive chairman of Aureus.
Aureus said the funds raised will be used to reduce its outstanding creditor balances, bolster its working capital, and ramp up the process plant at New Liberty, which is due to be restarted this month.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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