9 Jul 2012 07:00
Praetorian Resources Limited
("Praetorian Resources" or the "Company")
First Day of Dealings on AIM
Praetorian Resources (AIM: PRAE and PRSS) is pleased to announce its admission to AIM.
Praetorian Resources is a natural resources focused investment company founded by Richard Lockwood, who until recently was the senior resource fund manager at CQS New City Asset Management Ltd, and Malcolm Burne, the ex-Executive Chairman of Golden Prospect / Ambrian Partners plc. In addition to Messrs Lockwood and Burne, Praetorian has assembled an experienced board of directors of Andrew Ferguson (Chief Executive Officer of HKSE listed APAC Resources Limited), Mark Hohnen (ex-Executive Chairman of Kalahari Minerals plc) and Robert King. Richard Lockwood, Malcolm Burne and Charles Cannon-Brookes will form the advisory and execution team of Praetorian Resources and will assist its board of directors with its investment decisions and execution.
Highlights
·; Admission to AIM with an initial market capitalisation of approximately £20 million
·; Experienced board of directors and management team with track record of success
·; Strategy is to build a focused natural resources investment vehicle in order to generate positive returns to shareholders
The board regards the current environment to be a particularly opportune time to launch Praetorian Resources in order to take advantage of what it sees as depressed valuations in many mining and energy stocks.
Commenting on the Company's admission to AIM, Richard Lockwood said:
"We are delighted with the support that we have received in raising the funds necessary to take advantage of what we believe to be an extremely exciting opportunity.
The recent economic turmoil has not only had a severe effect on company share prices but also changed the investment criteria for many traditional institutional shareholders. As a result, we believe that there are many undervalued companies throughout the resources sector. With our extensive experience in the resources arena we believe that we are ideally placed to take advantage of the opportunities that have emerged in this stage in the investment cycle.
Our understanding of the mechanics of this sector and ability to react quickly will enable us to provide underfunded, quality assets with the necessary levels of investment, which will allow them to maximise the value of their underlying assets in these turbulent times."
Dealings of 40,082,866 ordinary shares of no par value ("Ordinary Shares") and 20,041,433 subscription shares of no par value (the "Subscription Shares") will commence at 08:00 a.m. BST (with the TIDM codes PRAE and PRSS respectively).
Contact
For further information and the full admission document please visit www.praetorianresources.com or contact:
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Robert King | Praetorian Resources Limited | +44 1481 253 797 |
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Richard Baty | Westhouse Securities Limited | +44 20 7601 6100 |
Petre Norton | Nominated Adviser |
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Guy Wilkes | Ocean Equities Limited | +44 207 786 4370 |
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Beth Harris | Newgate Threadneedle | +44 207 653 9850 |
Graham Herring | Financial PR |
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Further information on the Company
Initial Shareholding Structure
The Company has entered into a series of transactions, which include a cash placing, subscriptions in quoted resource focused companies and the purchase of portfolios of investments from fund managers. Praetorian Resources has paid for these investments in cash, Praetorian Resources shares and a combination of cash and shares. The Company's portfolio on admission will comprise of approximately £7 million in cash and £14 million in investments. The Company has entered into two further transactions, which are conditional on target company shareholder consent, and on completion will increase the portfolio by £2.3 million in cash and £0.9 million in investments.
The Ordinary Shares are being issued with Subscription Shares on a 1 for 2 basis. The Subscription Shares lapse on 31 July 2015 and for the period until their expiry they are convertible into Ordinary Shares at a subscription price of 70p per Ordinary Share.
The Opportunity
The Directors believe that volatility across the certain sectors, including (but not limited to) the precious metals sector, base metals sector, energy sector, industrial minerals sector, soft commodities sector, diamonds sector and other gemstones sector (the "Target Sectors") has created an opportunity to build a contrarian investment group focused on the natural resources sector, which aims to generate above average returns to shareholders. The Directors also believe that the recent high levels of market volatility has reduced the availability of equity and debt financing to the smaller and mid cap companies within the Target Sectors. The Directors intend to build a portfolio of good quality companies within the Target Sectors providing the Company with a portfolio of new investments to rationalise and pro-actively manage.
Objective and Strategy
In order to capitalise on the opportunity, the Company has assembled a high quality Board and set of advisers with substantial experience and a long term track record within the Target Sectors. The Company has been structured as an investment holding company in order to give the Board maximum flexibility to achieve its goals, and is domiciled in a tax efficient jurisdiction to ensure shareholders receive the benefit from any realised profits. The Company intends to operate as a supportive long term shareholder to its investee companies, but may also apply an active and hands-on approach where necessary to generate value.
The Company will utilise the contacts and skill of the Board and its advisers to attract and carry out appropriate due diligence on initial portfolio opportunities. A strong cash position will be used to underpin the initial portfolio while management will use its expertise and contact base to source new opportunities. The Company will be looking to take advantage of the tight credit conditions and inherent value currently available in its Target Sectors by investing into new investee companies at attractive valuations. The Company will be looking to aggregate significant stakes in its preferred portfolio companies and to act as a supportive, long term shareholder.
Investing Policy
The Company seeks to achieve capital appreciation through the purchase and sale of a wide range of securities and other investments within the Target Sectors including, without limitation and restrictions (including geographic restrictions):
(i) Traditional direct investments in securities and similar financial instruments including the following:
(a) equity securities (predominantly listed);
(b) listed and unlisted debt securities that may be rated or not rated (bonds, debt instruments, convertible bonds and bonds with warrants, fund-linked notes with a capital guarantee, loan facilities etc.); and
(c) money market instruments denominated in any freely convertible currency.
The Company has maximum flexibility without any restriction (including geographic restrictions) to exploit a wide range of investment opportunities within the Target Sectors as they arise and, to this end, the Company has complete flexibility in selecting the specific investment and trading strategies that it sees fit in order to achieve its investment objective. In this regard, the Company may seek to gain Board representation and/or managerial control in its underlying investments if it deems to be the best way of generating value for shareholders. Opportunities will be chosen through a careful selection process which will appraise both the fundamental factors specific to the opportunity as well as wider economic considerations. Typical factors that will be considered are the strength of management, the quality of the asset base, the investment's scale and growth potential, the commodity price outlook, any geopolitical concerns, the underlying financial position, future working capital requirements as well as potential exit routes. Furthermore, in order to avoid excessive portfolio concentration, the Company will generally hold no more than 20% of its net asset value in any single portfolio company at the time of investment.
No material change will be made to the Company's investing policy without the approval of shareholders.
The Board
The Directors are:
Robert Paul King (Chairman)
Rob is a non-executive director of a number of open and closed ended investment funds and companies. He was a director of Cannon Asset Management Limited and its associated companies from October 2007 to February 2011. Prior to this, he was a Director of Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited (formerly Guernsey International Fund Managers Limited) where he had worked from 1990 to 2007. He has been in the offshore finance industry since 1986 specialising in administration and structuring of offshore open and closed ended investment funds. Rob is British and resident in Guernsey.
Richard Arthur Lockwood
Richard was until recently the senior resource fund manager at CQS Asset Management Ltd having merged his New City Investment Management group with CQS in 2007. Prior to that, he was a senior fund manager at Invesco and a partner at Hoare Govett with responsibility for the mining department. He has held fund management positions at New City High Yield Fund Limited, City Merchants High Yield Trust Plc, City Natural Resources High Yield Trust plc and Geiger Counter Ltd. Richard has extensive experience in the financial securities markets in the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa and a number of his previous funds have achieved long term, top quartile ranked performance
Malcolm Alec Burne
Malcolm started his career in stock broking as an equity analyst and then later as investment editor of The Financial Times and Telegraph group. He has managed and controlled fund management, venture capital and investment banking companies in Australia, Hong Kong and North America. Malcolm has been a director of over 20 international companies, many of which have been in the mineral resources and gold exploration fields. He was founder of Ambrian Capital plc and former chairman of Australian Bullion Company, and is currently the non-executive chairman of Golden Prospect Precious Metals Limited.
Andrew Charles Ferguson
Andrew is the Executive Director and the Chief Executive Officer of APAC Resources. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Natural Resource Development and was a mining engineer in Western Australia in the mid 1990's. In 2003, he was co-founder of New City Investment Managers in England. He has a proven track record in fund management and was the former co-fund manager of City Natural Resources High Yield Trust, which was awarded 'Best UK Investment Trust' in 2006. He also worked for CQS LLP ("CQS") in Hong Kong as the Chief Investment Officer for New City Investment Managers CQS and a Senior Portfolio Manager for CQS. He has worked in the finance industry for over 15 years specialising in global natural resources.
Mark Ainsworth Hohnen
Mark was until recently the Executive Chairman of Kalahari Minerals plc which held a 43 per cent. shareholding in Extract Resources, the ASX listed uranium company which was focused on developing the Husab Project in Namibia, the world's third largest known primary uranium deposit. Extract Resources was recently sold to a consortium of Chinese institutional investors for US$2.2 billion. Mark has had extensive international business experience in a wide range of industries including mining, property, fund management, investment, software and agriculture. He has held a number of directorships in both public and private companies and was founding Chairman of Cape Mentelle and Cloudy Bay wines, as well as the UK listed royalty business, Anglo Pacific Resources Plc. Mark is currently the Chairman of North River Resources plc, the UK listed Namibian focused base metals company and Wildhorse Energy, the ASX listed Hungarian uranium and UGC company.
The Advisory and Execution Team
The members of the advisory and execution team are:
Richard Arthur Lockwood
Malcolm Alec Burne
Charles Cannon-Brookes
Charlie is the Investment Director of Arlington Group Asset Management Limited (FSA regulated - reference number 172337) and since 2005 has managed Arlington Special Situations Fund, a Cayman domiciled OEIC. For the previous five years (2000 - 2005), he ran Arlington Group Plc's proprietary trading book, managing all of its public equity exposure. Before that, he was a research analyst at Barclays de Zoete Wedd and then ABN Amro (Sydney), before moving to Jupiter Asset Management in 1998. He has extensive fund management experience and has advised and sat on the board of a number of other funds and trusts in a non-executive capacity.
Further issue of shares
Longships plc has conditionally subscribed for 4,616,020 new Ordinary Shares (with 2,308,010 Subscription Shares) at the Issue Price. Each of the three members of Praetorian Resources' advisory and execution team are all shareholders in Longships plc with an aggregate holding of representing 21.26% of the issued share capital of Longships plc. Malcolm Burne and Charles Cannon-Brookes are also directors of Longships plc. Longships plc's ordinary shares are admitted to trading on AIM and the subscription by Longships plc is being treated as a 'related party transaction' in so far as Longships plc is concerned for the purpose of Rule 13 of the AIM Rules. The completion of the subscription is subject to the approval at a general meeting of the independent shareholders of Longships plc. The Company's nominated adviser, Westhouse Securities, is also nominated adviser to Longships plc.
The issue of a further 1,950,000 Ordinary Shares and 975,000 Subscription Shares pursuant to one of the Company's share exchange transactions is conditional on the completion of the Mantle Diamonds Transfer (further details of which are set out in the Company's admission document). Accordingly, application will be made for these Ordinary Shares and Subscription Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM as soon as practicable following such completion.