Meantime Resources Plc (AIM: MTR) has commenced trading on AIM after completing a £15 million fundraising to finance its strategy of acquiring and developing mining assets. The company’s shares began trading at 8 am under the ticker MTR, with an issue price of £10 per share.
Meantime raised the money through a combination of an institutional placing and direct subscriptions from members of its management team, non-executive directors and other investors. A total of 1,499,999 new shares and 1.5 million warrants are being issued as part of the fundraising.
Following admission, Meantime has 1.5 million ordinary shares in issue, giving it an initial market capitalisation of £15 million at the issue price. The company is initially classified as an AIM investing company, meaning it does not yet own an operating mining asset.
Its strategy is to acquire, develop and ultimately operate precious and base metals projects, initially concentrating on established mining jurisdictions across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Management intends to complete an acquisition within 18 months of admission, after which Meantime expects to become an operating company.
The initial search will focus on producing assets or development-stage projects with identified Mineral Resources and a credible pathway towards operating cash flow within less than five years.
Management envisages that timeframe potentially comprising around two to three years of evaluation and engineering studies followed by approximately two years of construction.
Martyn Konig, Non-Executive Chair of Meantime Resources, said: “We are excited to have successfully brought Meantime Resources to the market. We believe the listing and industry focused investor base will provide a platform from which we can execute our acquisition strategy while simultaneously raising the company’s profile and increasing access to the number of available acquisition opportunities.”
Martin Horgan, CEO of Meantime Resources, added: “We believe an opportunity exists to build a full life-cycle company focused on acquiring, developing and operating high-quality precious and base metals mining assets in established mining jurisdictions. Initial work has been undertaken to identify and evaluate a pipeline of potential opportunities where we believe we will be able to apply our extensive collective experience to generate value.”
For investors, the attraction is the unusually substantial £15 million starting capital base for a newly admitted mining investment vehicle.
The central risk is execution: Meantime currently has no operating asset, so value creation will depend heavily on the quality, price and financing structure of its first acquisition.
The next major catalyst will therefore be the identification and completion of a transaction capable of converting the company from a funded investment vehicle into an operating precious or base metals business.
