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Seven more capital raises were announced today, adding to the 89 ASX-listed companies that have raised almost $2 billion so far this year — that’s an average raise of $22 million.
By far, the largest capital raise of 2022 to date was the allocation finalised this week by biotech giant CSL, which completed a $750 million share purchase plan, topping up its $6.3 billion placement. The money supports CSL’s acquisition of Swiss Vifor Pharma in a $16.4 billion cash deal.
The next largest raises this year were by: Nickel Mines (NIC) $296 million, Syrah Resources (SYR) $193 million, and Telix Pharmaceuticals (TLX) $175 million.
From there, the value drops some $100 million to the next largest raise, $75 million by Centaurus Metals (CTM).
Added to the tally above, new raises were today announced by Ardea Resources (ARL), Eve Health Group (EVE), Gold Mountain (GMN), Kneomedia (KNM), Metgasco (MEL), Riedel Resources (RIE) and Red Dirt Metals (RDT).
This week Deal Room looked at Adelaide-based Robotic welding company, K-TIG (KTG), and its $4 million private placement. The raise was done to further its bid to build nuclear waste storage boxes.
Executive Director Adrian Smith says the company hopes to not only supply the technology required to make the boxes, but to be engaged to fabricate them.
“These are basically big stainless steel boxes that are concrete-lined. They hold about three cubic metres each,” he said. “You put waste into them, put a lid on them and bury them about a kilometre underground — that’s the solution that they’re working on.
“Our technology is particularly well suited for making these boxes.”
K-TIG has a market cap of about $60 million and share trade opened at 35 cents this morning.
PNX Metals (PNX) raised nearly $4 million with half-cent shares. The company’s progressing gold projects south of Darwin.
PNX Managing Director and CEO James Fox admitted it hurt to raise funds at such a low share price.
“Whilst I would absolutely love for the share price to be two, three, four times what it is now, and for us to be raising at a significantly higher amount, we were exceptionally fortunate that we received such a large uptake — that was just under 87 per cent uptake from existing shareholders,” he said. “Over 250 individual shareholders participated in the rights issue.
“So whilst there is no excuse for the current share price, and clearly we are, and we should be, measured on what we’re returning to investors in terms of an investment, we are very well supported by the existing shareholder group, so to that extent we are moving the projects forward.”
PNX Metals’ trade opened at 0.6 cents this morning. The market cap is about $22 million. The Deal Room will upload the full interview with James Fox early next week.
Rafaella Resources (RFR) has raised $2 million in a private placement at 6 cents to further its tungsten and tin projects in Spain.
Managing Director Steven Turner said Rafaella was looking to spin out its Canadian nickel, copper and platinum group element projects to focus on the projects in Spain and pending acquisitions in Portugal.
But the share price has dropped with the capital raising.
“We can get one of our lowest cost projects up into production quickly, which will be San Finx, and then we can start recycling the funds through into the porfolio, so I think we’re pulling together something which really is very exciting,” Mr Turner said.
“Somewhere maybe in the market the message has been lost a little bit, I think an important thing to note here is we don’t have major capital commitments in front of us.”
Rafaella has a market cap approaching $11.5 million and share trade opened at 6 cents.
Finally, Traka Resources (TKL) has raised $800,000 to keep exploring at its Mt Cattlin Gold-Copper Project in Western Australia.
Managing Director Patrick Verbeek said drilling indicated large-scale porphyry potential and the “modest” raise would allow the company to maintain the momentum of work.
“There’s some very spectacular high grades in high-grade shutes and I think there’ll be a combination of that, and also wider lower-grade copper-gold. It’s a bit of a mixture, but I think, in combination, sufficient to give us real scale,” he said.
“We are frustratingly delayed — like most of the industry — by slow turnaround in laboratory results, we’ve got about half of them from our last drill program.
“When we get those [remaining results], we’ll collate that, get the information together and then start planning the next round of drilling.”
Traka raised the funds at 1.2 cents per share. Its market cap is above $9.5 million ($9.64 million) and share trade opened at 1.3 cents this morning.
There’ve been 17 IPOs so far this year — the majority being new mineral exploration companies — but there were no new listings this week. Another 17 companies are raising $174 million in IPO funds, preparing to list on the ASX.
For more information on the companies we’ve mentioned here, or any other ASX listed company, go to the search tab on this website.
