Predictive Discovery raises A$26.5 million to fuel 110,000-metre drilling program at Bankan Gold Project

Predictive Discovery Ltd (ASX:PDI) has received commitments of A$26.5 million in a placement to institutional, sophisticated and professional investors to help drive growth in resources at the Bankan Gold Project. The placement was narrowly focused on several tier-1 North American funds with a track record of strong success investing in emerging West African gold companies as well as targeting highly accomplished ultra-high net worth resource investors. The placement price of A$0.08 represents an 8.38% discount to the 5-day VWAP prior to the placement. Euroz Hartleys Limited and Sprott Capital Partners LP were joint lead managers and bookrunners to the placement. “Very long runway of growth” PDI managing director Paul Roberts said: “We have received overwhelming support for this placement. “The strong participation by tier-1 international and domestic institutional investors, many of which have a strong track record of investing in the West African sector, reinforces our conviction that we have found a truly remarkable project at Bankan – one with a very long runway of growth ahead of it. “The placement will enable us to commence by far the largest program that we have undertaken to date to deliver key project milestones at NE Bankan and Bankan Creek as well as test the numerous potentially high impact exploration targets in the broader Bankan project, beginning with Argo where we already have high grades in the auger over good intercepts.” Drilling program planned Placement proceeds will be applied to around 110,000 metres of drilling planned over the next 12 months at the project and will also be used to deliver metallurgical test-work, the commencement of technical studies and baseline studies required for project development including social and environmental studies, and for general working capital. The company plans to begin with testing nine high order near-regional targets on interpreted ENE-WSW faults, crosscutting a newly recognised major 35 kilometre-long NNW structural corridor with the potential to host numerous ‘NE Bankan-style’ discoveries. These potentially high-impact targets may now be immediately followed-up, commencing with the company’s recent regional exploration success only 17 kilometres north of NE Bankan, at Argo where numerous high-value targets are already yielding widespread high-grade gold – including 12 metres at 9.8 g/t and 16 metres at 2 g/t. Two tranche placement The placement will be issued in two tranches: The first tranche of 249,669,873 shares (around A$19.97 million) is not subject to shareholder approval and will fall within the company’s placement capacity under ASX Listing Rules 7.1 (148,190,533 shares) and 7.1A (101,479,340 shares) and is scheduled to complete on Tuesday, May 25, 2021; The second tranche, consisting of 81,580,127 shares (around A$6.53 million), will be issued subject to shareholder approval at a meeting of shareholders scheduled to take place in late June 2021. In addition, directors of the company have committed to subscribe to A$45,000 in Tranche 2 of the placement subject to receipt of shareholder approval. Looking forward Roberts said: “Consistent with our focus on advancing Bankan and commitment to our 100%-owned portfolio in Guinea, the company is also progressing its divestment strategy for non-core assets, with opportunities for its Burkina Faso and Cote D’Ivoire licences being progressed to minimise ongoing costs on those projects, whilst maintaining some exposure for shareholders. “We welcome new investors to the company as part of the placement and, once again, acknowledge the strong support received from many of our existing shareholders.”