IRR.L Regulatory News (IRR)

20 January 2021

IronRidge Resources Limited

(AIM: IRR)

Fully Underwritten

Call Notice for Exercise of Warrants

IronRidge Resources Limited (AIM: IRR, "IronRidge" or the "Company"), the African focussed minerals exploration company is pleased to announce the fully underwritten call for exercise of warrants.

Pursuant to approval granted by shareholders at the Company's General Meeting of 25 June 2020, the Company has remaining in issue 31,608,492 warrants (the "Fundraise Warrants") issued to participants in the Company's capital raising announced on 11 May 2020. Each Fundraise warrant is exercisable at an exercise price of 12p into one Depositary Interest of no par value in the Company ("Ordinary Share").

In accordance with the Terms & Conditions of the Fundraise Warrants, the Company has the ability to call on the holders to exercise their Fundraise Warrants in the event that the Company's ordinary shares trade at a Volume Weighted Average Price at or above 16p per share for a period of five (5) consecutive business days ("trigger event"). The trigger event was achieved on 12 August 2020.

The Company is hereby exercising its right to call on the holders of all the Fundraise Warrants to exercise their holdings and advises all holders of the Fundraise Warrant that they have 20 calendar days from the date of this announcement in which to elect to exercise their warrants, after which they have a maximum of 10 calendar days for payment. The resultant shares are expected to be allotted progressively as funds are received, as the Fundraise Warrants were subject to a Block Listing Application as advised to the market on 17 September 2020.

The exercise of the Fundraise Warrants is fully underwritten by Open Source Capital Limited (50%), Alberona Pty Ltd (a company controlled by Vincent Mascolo, the Chief Executive Officer of IronRidge) and Neil Herbert (the Chairman of IronRidge) such that, to the extent any Fundraise Warrants are not exercised, the ordinary shares that would have been issued to the Fundraise Warrant holder if exercised will, instead, be issued to Open Source Capital Limited, Alberona Pty Ltd and Neil Herbert, in the proportion of 50%, 25% and 25% respectively, at a price of 12p per ordinary share.

An underwriter's fee will be payable to each of the three underwriters at the rate of 6% of the value of the ordinary shares subject of the Fundraise Warrant exercise process, with no fees attributable to warrants held by entities associated with Vincent Mascolo and Neil Herbert, or Assore Limited.

A copy of the paperwork to be sent to each warrant holder is available on the Company's website here: https://www.ironridgeresources.com.au/warrantexerciseform 

The fully underwritten exercise of 12p warrants as outlined above will raise £3,793,019 in new capital (before costs) to assist the Company's ongoing project exploration and development efforts within Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Chad.

Drilling has commenced in Ghana where a 12,500m resource and exploration reverse circulation ("RC") programme designed to grow the Ewoyaa resource and enhance the exploration pipeline is underway. The recently announced Ewoyaa Scoping Study has demonstrated life of mine revenues exceeding US$1.55bn, Post-tax NPV8 of US$345M and an Internal Rate of Return of 125% over 8 years. It is estimated that every additional year of production will add c. US$40M in NPV per annum, further reinforcing the drill programme currently underway (refer RNS of 19 January 2021).

In Côte d'Ivoire, the Zaranou aircore ("AC") and RC drilling programme currently underway has delivered multiple high-grade gold intersections including 28m at 4.07g/t from 124m in hole ZARC0100, 8m at 14.01g/t from 4m in hole ZAAC0763, 16m at 6.68g/t from 100m in hole ZARC0102 and 64m at 1.41g/t from 100m in hole ZARC0104, with the programme estimated to be completed by end January 2021 (refer RNS of 18 January 2021). Concurrently an extensive auger programme is underway over the Vavoua portfolio testing high-priority geophysical targets along strike from the 3Moz Abujar deposit and a 2,500m RC programme planned to test trenching targets at the Kineta portfolio. Exploration planning is underway to follow-up AC drill intersections at the Bianouan and Bodite portfolios.

In Chad, the Company is currently preparing for a 7,000m RC programme to test high-priority targets including the Dorothe intrusion related gold target where trenching has returned multiple high-grade gold intersections including 84m at 1.66g/t, 4m at 18.77g/t, 32m at 2.02g/t, 24m at 2.53g/t, 4m at 14.12g/t, 2m at 34.1g/t and 1m at 63.2g/t over a 3km long by 1km area.

Related party transaction

The underwriting of the Fundraise Warrants by Alberona Pty Ltd (a company controlled by Vincent Mascolo, the Chief Executive Officer of IronRidge) and Neil Herbert (the Chairman of IronRidge) (together the "Related Party Underwriting") constitute related party transactions pursuant to AIM Rule 13 of the AIM Rules for Companies. The Directors independent of the Related Party Underwriting consider, having consulted with the Company's Nominated Adviser, that the Related Party Underwriting is fair and reasonable insofar as the shareholders of the Company are concerned. 

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

For any further information please contact:

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

Notes to Editors:

IronRidge Resources is an AIM-listed, Africa focussed minerals exploration company with a lithium pegmatite discovery in Ghana, extensive grassroots gold portfolio in Côte d'Ivoire and a potential new gold province discovery in Chad. The Company holds legacy iron ore assets in Gabon and a bauxite resource in Australia. IronRidge's strategy is to create and sustain shareholder value through the discovery and development of significant and globally demanded commodities.

Côte d'Ivoire

The Company entered into conditional earn-in arrangements in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa; securing access rights to highly prospective gold mineralised structures and pegmatite occurrences covering a combined 3,584km2 and 1,172km2 area respectively. The projects are well located within access of an extensive bitumen road network and along strike from multi-million-ounce gold projects and mines. The Company's most advanced project is the Zaranou gold project which includes high-grade gold drilling intersections along 8km strike including 6m at 6.44g/t gold from 132m, 6m at 15.11g/t gold from 26m, 4m at 5.16g/t gold from 110m and 22m at 3.39g/t gold from 8m within a broader 47km long gold anomalous structure.

Ghana

The Cape Coast Lithium portfolio covers some 684km2 and includes the newly discovered Ewoyaa Lithium Project with a maiden Mineral Resource estimate of 14.5Mt at 1.31% Li2O in the inferred and indicated category including 4.5Mt at 1.39% Li2O in the indicated category (reported in accordance with the JORC Code). The Company entered into earn-in arrangements with Obotan Minerals Limited, Merlink Resources Limited, Barari Developments Limited and Joy Transporters Limited of Ghana, West Africa, securing the first access rights to acquire the historical Egyasimanku Hill spodumene rich lithium deposit, estimated to be in the order of 1.48Mt at 1.67% Li2O and surrounding tenements. The tenure package is also prospective for tin, tantalum, niobium, caesium and gold, which occur as accessory minerals within the pegmatites and host formations.

Chad

The Company entered into an agreement with Tekton Minerals Pte Ltd of Singapore concerning its portfolio covering 746km2 of highly prospective gold and other mineral projects in Chad, Central Africa. IronRidge acquired 100% of Tekton including its projects and team to advance the Dorothe, Echbara, Am Ouchar, Nabagay and Kalaka licenses, which host multiple, large scale gold projects. Trenching results at Dorothe, including 84m at 1.66g/t Au (including 6m at 5.49g/t & 8m at 6.23g/t), 4m at 18.77g/t Au (including 2m at 36.2g/t), 32m at 2.02g/t Au (including 18m at 3.22g/t), 24m at 2.53g/t Au (including 6m at 4.1g/t (including 2m at 6.2g/t) and 2m at 6.14g/t), 14.12g/t Au over 4m, 34.1g/t over 2m and 63.2g/t over 1m, have defined significant gold mineralised quartz veining zones over a 3km by 1km area including the steep dipping 'Main Vein' and shallow dipping 'Sheeted Vein' zones.

Australia

Monogorilby is prospective for province scale titanium and bauxite, with an initial maiden resource of 54.9MT of premium DSO bauxite. Monogorilby is located in central Queensland, within a short trucking distance of the rail system leading north to the Port of Bundaberg. It is also located within close proximity of the active Queensland Rail network heading south towards the Port of Brisbane.

Gabon

Tchibanga is located in south-western Gabon, in the Nyanga Province, within 10-60km of the Atlantic coastline. This project comprises two exploration licenses, Tchibanga and Tchibanga Nord, which cover a combined area of 3,396km2 and include over 90km of prospective lithologies and the historic Mont Pele iron occurrence.

Belinga Sud is Located in the north east of Gabon in the Ogooue-Ivindo Province, approximately 400km east of the capital city of Libreville. IRR's licence lies between the main Belinga Iron Ore Deposit, believed to be one of the world's largest untapped reserves of iron ore with an estimated 1bt of iron ore at a grade >60% Fe, and the route of the Trans Gabonese railway, which currently carries manganese ore and timber from Franceville to the Port of Owendo in Libreville.

Corporate

IronRidge made its AIM debut in February 2015, successfully securing strategic alliances with three international companies; Assore Limited of South Africa, Sumitomo Corporation of Japan and DGR Global Limited of Australia. Assore is a high-grade iron, chrome and manganese mining specialist. Sumitomo Corporation is a global resources, mining marketing and trading conglomerate. DGR Global is a project generation and exploration specialist.