SolGold advances on placement of 119.8m shares

AIM-listed precious metal mining company SolGold has agreed to place 119.8m shares at 0.015 pounds per share to raise gross proceeds of AUD2.6m with institutional and private investors.

The shares are expected to be admitted to trading on AIM on April 8th 2013.

The company now has a total of 544m fully-paid ordinary shares, 10,700 convertible redeemable preference shares, 9.5m options exercisable at 50p, 1.3m options exercisable at 28p and 1.3m options exercisable at 14p on issue.

SolGold said that it intends to use the majority of funds raised to continue to progress its exploration and drilling at Cascabel. It said that a smaller proportion of funds would also be used to continue exploration at the Rannes project in Queensland, Australia.

The company said that there had been "highly encouraging" gold and copper assays from all follow-up trenching at its Alpala Prospect within the Cascabel Project in Ecuador, with the results significantly expanding the area of mapped and mineralised porphyry gold-copper stockwork veining in the Alpala region.

Nick Mather, Executive Director of SolGold, said: "The placing received good institutional support and the proceeds will enable us to continue exploration and drilling at Cascabel, as well as further exploration at Rannes."

He added: "Currently demonstrated gold and copper grades are commensurate with those of economic porphyry systems within the region, and importantly distinguish Cascabel as a high grade example. The company has an active field program underway, designed to bring this compelling porphyry target to a drill testing stage in the coming months. The company recognises support from its existing shareholders and welcomes new shareholders."

Solgold's share price was unchanged at 1.62p at 08:33 following an early morning high of 1.88p per share.

MF