Bezant Res Regulatory News (BZT)

16 November 2016

Bezant Resources Plc

("Bezant" or the "Company")

Final Results for the Year Ended 30 June 2016

Bezant (AIM: BZT), the AIM quoted mineral exploration and development company, announces its audited final results for the year ended 30 June 2016.

Highlights:

Corporate:

· £9.1m loss after tax (30 June 2015: £0.7m)

· Impairment charge of £8.3m relating to the Company's Mankayan Copper-Gold Project, Philippines

· Approximately £0.3m cash at bank at the period end (30 June 2015: £1.7m)

Platinum and Gold Mining Project, Choco District, Colombia:

· Option exercised to acquire 100% of Leeward Islands Exploration LLC which holds certain options over alluvial platinum and gold mining and exploration licences located in and around the Choco District, Colombia

Mankayan Copper-Gold Project, Philippines (the "Mankayan Project" or "Mankayan"):

· Mankayan Project fully impaired due to the significant lingering uncertainty with respect to achieving any potential sale or joint venture ("JV") for the project in light of the current political and tax environment in the Philippines

Post Period End:

· Exploration agreement entered into with Exumax S.A.S ("Exumax") to secure its management services and expertise in respect of a planned 24-month exploration and development programme for the Company's near surface Colombian platinum and gold assets

· Successfully raised, in aggregate, £1,189,000 before expenses, through a placement, via Beaufort Securities Limited, of 38,400,000 new ordinary shares of 0.2 pence each in the capital of the Company and a subscription for a further 21,050,000 new ordinary shares by certain new and existing investors, both at a price of 2.0 pence per new ordinary share

· Acquisition of 100 per cent. of Colombian Mining Data S.A. ("CMD") completed for consideration comprising the issue of 7,201,745 new ordinary shares. CMD holds, inter alia, certain proprietary geological information and other data and intellectual property rights to be utilised by Exumax in performing its services under the Exploration Agreement

· Work commenced at our Colombia gold-platinum licences in October 2016, OBJECTIVE:

o Rapidly establish production economics of the FKJ-083 licence area, correlating historic mining data from previous operations with current exploration and processing results

o Establish first producing alluvial plant for platinum and gold

o Begin pipeline of further exploration and evaluation to establish prospective production zones

For further information, please contact:

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR").

Chairman's Statement

I am pleased to present the Group's final results for the financial year ended 30 June 2016 and to report on the Company's on-going activities to the date of this statement.

For the financial year ended 30 June 2016, the Group reported a loss, before and after tax, of £9.1m, in comparison to a loss of £0.7m in the previous year. The increased annual loss is primarily due to the full impairment of the carrying value for the Mankayan Project of £8.3m. The Board has decided to fully impair the Mankayan Project due to the significant lingering uncertainty with respect to achieving any potential sale or joint venture ("JV") for the project in light of the current political and tax environment in the Philippines. Despite this prudent full impairment of the Mankayan Project in the Company's accounts, we will actively continue to seek partners, particularly Philippine based entities, with a view to a potential future sale or JV for the project. I would like to remind shareholders that the Company has previously returned more capital to shareholders (8p per share in May 2013) than has been spent on the acquisition, exploration and development of the project to date.

This reporting period has seen Bezant achieve some real milestones in changing the Company's direction to better match the current challenging global economic and political conditions. Historically, as noted above, we have used Mankayan to achieve value enhancement and capital returns. Mankayan was proved-up in a very cost effective manner at a time when mining companies were seeking to acquire such flagship assets and the option payments received from Gold Fields Netherlands Services BV ("Goldfields") in 2011/2012 are testament to the validity of Bezant's approach. Market conditions have now completely altered and the Board therefore decided to formulate a new strategy to seek to achieve and return shareholder value. To this end, the Board continues to operate the Company from as a low a cost base as reasonably practicable, with salaries reduced across the organisation. The Board has identified and reviewed a series of projects, with particular emphasis on low cost platinum group metals recovery.

Having founded Aquarius Platinum Limited ("Aquarius Platinum"), and co-founded Sylvania Platinum Limited ("Sylvania Platinum"), our management team has had a long history with platinum and developing innovative new ways to recover platinum. At Aquarius Platinum, we pioneered a new way to mine the famous UG2 Reef in Bushveld in South Africa and introduced outsourcing to the management of mining companies. At Sylvania Platinum, we introduced novel and highly successful techniques for the recovery of platinum from Chrome Tailings Dumps. Both Aquarius Platinum and Sylvania Platinum held their respective assets in the famous Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The Bushveld Complex is the world's most significant platinum producer, but it now faces major political and mining challenges that are creating very high costs for the platinum mining industry in South Africa. This has led us to consider platinum projects outside of South Africa. In Colombia we identified that there are promising near surface alluvial platinum projects in the famous Choco district, a region that had previously been the world's major source of platinum prior to the discovery of the Bushveld Complex in South Africa. The Colombian project we have acquired has the benefit of near surface alluvial gravels that contain both platinum and gold deposits, and both metals are recoverable in their native state. The mining conditions in Colombia are very simple compared to the Bushveld Complex. The Bushveld Complex essentially involves deep, hard rock mining operations with considerable metallurgical complexity involved in liberating the economic metals. In the past, Colombia has been considered to be a high risk country, however, modern day Colombia has experienced nearly half a decade of new investment, much improved stability and despite the recent referendum vote rejecting the FARC Peace Agreement, the government and FARC are continuing to negotiate a peace settlement and the consensus is that all parties are working towards achieving a peaceful solution.

Following extensive assessment, the Board announced on 16 November 2015 that the Company had entered into an option agreement to potentially acquire a company holding interests in various platinum and gold licences in the Choco District located in NW Colombia. The option agreement afforded the Company the right to acquire 100 per cent. of Leeward Islands Exploration LLC ("Leeward") which holds options over more than 2,600ha of highly prospective platinum and gold tenements including in historical mining areas.

Subsequently, the Board concluded a small equity subscription to raise approximately £0.4 million (before expenses) on 1 December 2015 to enable the Company to progress the potential exercise of the option and associated due diligence. The Board exercised the Company's option to acquire Leeward for consideration comprising US$1 million and the issue of 37,306,137 new ordinary shares on 26 January 2016. We then embarked on a work programme to further assess the potential of the licences held under option by Leeward, and initiated the requisite local community consultation processes in order to obtain the relevant environmental and related permits and approvals prior to the commencement of exploration activities.

Post the reporting period end, the Board was delighted to announce that its preferred project development partner had been secured, namely Exumax S.A.S. ("Exumax"), a Colombian based alluvial mining company with an international management team with over 6 years' experience operating alluvial mining projects in Colombia. Exumax has built a bespoke alluvial business in Colombia having imported specialist alluvial mining equipment from New Zealand, the world leaders in stream bed mining technology.

With our exploration agreement in place with Exumax and all required permits and approvals having been secured to enable exploration work to commence on the FKJ-083 licence area, a further equity fundraising of approximately £1.19m was successfully concluded in September 2016. As a further indication of their support and belief in the potential of the Company and its asset portfolio, the Board also converted certain unpaid fees and salaries in September 2016, subsequent to the equity fund raising at a circa 20 per cent. premium to the placing price. Alluvial processing test plant was then mobilised to site by Exumax and commissioned. All required machinery, earth-moving equipment, processing plant and work crews are now on site and work on the first exploration test pits has commenced on the FKJ-083 licence area. I look forward to updating the market in due course as we make further progress.

Mr Edward Nealon

Non-Executive Chairman

15 November 2016

Group Statement of Comprehensive Income

For the year ended 30 June 2016

Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity

For the year ended 30 June 2016

Consolidated Balance Sheet

As at 30 June 2016

Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows

For the year ended 30 June 2016

Notes to the financial information

For the year ended 30 June 2016