Patagonia Gold Regulatory News (PGD)

1 Mar 2007 07:02

Patagonia Gold PLC01 March 2007 1 March 2007 BARRICK CONVERTS LOAN NOTES TO SHARES IN PATAGONIA GOLD On 21 February 2007, Patagonia Gold Plc ("Patagonia Gold" or the "Company"), theSouth American mining company, announced that it acquired Barrick GoldCorporation's ("Barrick") entire exploration property portfolio in the SantaCruz province of Southern Argentina. Initial consideration for the acquisitioncomprised a cash payment of US$800,000 and the issue by the Company of loannotes, convertible into 30,345,160 new ordinary shares of 1p each in the Company("New Ordinary Shares") representing 10% of the enlarged issued share capital ofPatagonia Gold. Today Patagonia Gold is pleased to announce that on 28 February 2007 it allottedthe New Ordinary Shares to Barrick pursuant to the conversion by the noteholdersof the £2,162,092.65 of convertible loan notes (the "Loan Notes"), which wereissued by the Company on 20 February 2007. The Loan Notes converted at a priceof 7.125p per share. Commenting on the announcement, Patagonia Gold's Chairman, Sir John Craven said: "We are very pleased to welcome Barrick as a major shareholder in the Company.We believe that their prompt conversion of the loan notes into shares inPatagonia reflects their belief in our ability to develop the assets acquired byus and we look forward to building a strong working relationship between the twocompanies." As a result of the conversion Barrick now has an interest in 30,345,160 OrdinaryShares, representing 10 per cent of the Company's issued share capital asenlarged by the issue of the New Ordinary Shares ("Enlarged Share Capital"). Application has been made for admission of the New Ordinary Shares to trading onthe AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. It is expected that admission willbecome effective and that dealings will commence in the New Ordinary Shares on5 March 2007. As of today's date Patagonia Gold has a single class of shares inissue being ordinary shares of 1 pence each ("Ordinary Shares") and there willbe 303,451,595 Ordinary Shares in issue, each carrying one vote per OrdinaryShare. The total number of voting rights in the Company's ordinary shares is therefore303,451,595 which may be used by shareholders as the denominator for thecalculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, Patagonia Gold under theFinancial Service Authority's Disclosure and Transparency Rules. For more information, please contact: Bill Humphries / Richard Prickett Anthony Cardew/Tim RobertsonPatagonia Gold Plc Tel: +44 (0) 20 7930 0777Tel: + 44 (0)20 7409 7444 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7925 0647 www.patagoniagold.com Email:tim.robertson@cardewgroup.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange