Sierra Rutile raises £14m in share placing

Sierra Rutile had an extra £14m to play with on Thursday, completing a share placing with both new and existing institutional investors.

The AIM-traded firm said the placing was oversubscribed, with the net proceeds being used to provide additional working capital and financial flexibility, enabling it to continue to implement its strategy of growing production by expanding its dry mining operations.

It placed 70,052,539 new ordinary shares at a price of 20p per share, representing 11.8% of Sierra’s enlarged issued share capital.

Pala Minerals, which currently holds 56.36% of the company’s issued share capital, committed to subscribe for 23,750,000 shares in the placing.

"We are pleased with the strong investor support for our oversubscribed share placing, which strengthens our balance sheet as we look to continue to implement our strategy of increasing our production profile through the expansion of our dry mining operations in a way that aligns production with anticipated customer demand for our product,” said Sierra Rutile CEO John Sisay.

“We would like to thank our existing cornerstone shareholders for their continued support, as well as welcome new institutional shareholders onto the register at what is an exciting time for the company.

“We believe that we are well positioned to execute on our market led strategy and feel confident that the market dynamics for Rutile bode well for pricing towards the end of this year and beyond,” Sisay explained.

At 1550 BST, shares in Sierra Rutile were trading down 5.68% at 22.4p.