FinnAust Mining's full year pre-tax loss widens due to recent acqusitions

(ShareCast News) - Titanium and ilmenite explorer FinnAust Mining's full year pre-tax loss widened due to the cost of recent acquisitions, with management adding it was wary of the impact the Brexit vote would have on future trading and performance.For the year ended 30 June, loss before tax widened by 10.4% to £620,059 compared to the previous year.Cash at year-end fell 46.5% to £425,046, although since June the company had raised £500,000 through a placing of 10m new ordinary shares of 0.01p each at 5p per share.Nonetheless, Yuen Low at ShoreCap said: "given its burn rate, we expect that more funds will need to be raised shortly".The Pituffik titanium project in Greenland, which the company bought in December 2015, "has the potential to be in the top percentile of the projects worldwide in terms of heavy mineral grade" and the company's financial year was characterised by the rapid transformation and progress of the project, as multiple prospects were identified.The AIM-listed company is to publish the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (JORC code) compliant resource report by the end of the year on the project, ahead of commencing a proof-of-concept bulk sampling programme in 2017.Chairman Graham Marshall said: "I am confident that Pituffik has the potential to be a globally significant titanium project with a low cost route to market ... The remainder of 2016 will see us deliver a maiden resource for the area and strengthen our understanding of the processing requirements for this unusually pure mineralisation, which will in turn aid our end user/offtake discussions."He said following the result of the June referendum to leave the European Union, the company "acknowledge that this may have an impact on the company's future trading and performance" and that he "cannot say with any certainty as to what this impact will be, given the uncertainty surrounding the UK's withdrawal from the EU" but the company will continue to monitor the situation closely and "take action as and where deemed appropriate".FinnAust also recently bought Avannaa Exploration, a subsidiary of Cairn Energy, which is yet to settle and remains conditional on approval of Greenland's authorities.In January it increased the licence coverage by about 50% across the Hammaslahti copper-gold-zinc project, the Outokumpu copper project and the Kelkka nickel project in Finland.The company was admitted to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in February, in response to the strong demand from European investors as its core operations are located across the continent.Shares in FinnAust Mining were down 2.26% to 6.50p at 0853 BST.