Share Talk took the opportunity to catch up with CEO Ben Turney to hear his thoughts and what the future holds for investors.
Ben discusses recent developments following a significant fundraising event for his company. He talks about the healthy cash balance before the fundraising and the company’s decision to raise additional funds due to promising gold intersections found in their exploration efforts in Zimbabwe.
They have started drilling at the Nara project and are planning to remobilize drilling at the Hillside project, where they hope to confirm commercially viable discoveries.
Kavango Resources plc (LSE: KAV), the Southern Africa-focused metals exploration company, announced the Company has raised £3,085,366 by the issue of 257,113,862 New Ordinary Shares in the capital of the Company at a price per share of 1.2 pence, via an underwritten accelerated bookbuild.
- Purebond has increased its holding to 58%
- CEO Ben Turney has subscribed for 2 million shares
- Non-Exec Director Peter Wynter Bee has increased his position to 6%
- The company will use the funds to accelerate our drill programmes
The company announced yesterday that it has agreed to updated terms for the exercise of the Hillside Call Option with the vendors of the Hillside Project (“Hillside”) and Leopard South Project. Kavango has granted a royalty of 5% of gold production on the properties, capped at a value of $1,500,000, and which Kavango may at its option buy out within 12 months for an issue of 63,125,000 shares in the Company.
Ben Turney, Chief Executive Officer of Kavango, commented:
“Following the successful completion of the £3.08million financing, we’ve finalised terms on exercising the Hillside project option. The accelerated bookbuild was an innovative funding approach that was only possible thanks to Purebond’s strong support for Kavango and has helped us defend our recent share price gains in difficult market conditions.
In completing this transaction, Kavango becomes the sole owner of a significant ground holding in a highly prospective area for large-scale gold mining. Our recent drill results from Hillside have confirmed the region’s great potential. Highlights from our first two holes included 7.2m @ 9.95g/t at Prospect 2 and 2.53m @ 29.08g/t at Prospect 4. We plan to return soon with the drill rig to follow up on these targets to test for bulk-minable ore bodies.
Meanwhile, through Kavango Mining, we will continue to increase profitable gold production at Hillside. Encouragingly, production in April was just over 1kg, representing a second consecutive profitable month. It is encouraging that this business unit is performing better than expected and before we invest in new equipment. We will shortly announce a capital investment programme to grow production over the coming months.
I must congratulate all our team for the excellent work they are doing. Our exploration team is performing extremely well and the Kavango Mining team has got off to a great start. We are laying a strong foundation in Zimbabwe to build a successful business together.”
Use of funds
Funds from the Accelerated Bookbuild will contribute to the Company’s general working capital, fund further exploration and development work and provide finance for acquisitions.
Exploration work will include (but not be limited to):
- Diamond drilling to test presence of multiple economic gold ore bodies in Hillside/Nara gold belt, Zimbabwe
- 5,000m diamond drill campaign to prove the Kara Anticline is a copper-mineralising system in the Kalahari Copper Belt, Botswana
- Completion of Hillside acquisition (announced >>> 23 April 2024)
- Capital investment into Kavango Mining to increase gold production (announced >>> 08 March 2024)
- Increasing project footprint in Zimbabwe, through securing additional options on projects
Further information in respect of the Company and its business interests is provided on the Company’s website at www.kavangoresources.com and on Twitter at #KAV.
For further information please contact:
Kavango Resources plc
Ben Turney
+46 7697 406 06
