Altona conditionally raises £1.29m

Altona Rare Earths plc has conditionally raised £1,290,000 via a subscription and two loans to progress its African projects.

PROSPECTUS

The 1.2% discounted subscription for 39,000,000 new ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the company raised £390,000.

Altona additionally secured two loans of £600,000 and £300,000.

Of the combined amount raised, private investor Tracarta Ltd made a £300,000 subscription and loaned £600,000.

Chief executive Cedric Simonet and chief financial officer Louise Adrian subscribed for 1m and 2.5m shares respectively.

The subscription is subject to the publication of a Financial Conduct Authority approved prospectus, which the company aims to complete as soon as possible.

Net proceeds will help efforts to secure a strategic investor for Altona’s Monte Muambe project and to complete acquisition of the Sesana and Kabompo South copper interests in Botswana.

Funds will also be used for exploration at Sesana to generate drilling targets and to drill the first exploration boreholes by the end of 2024.

WARRANTS

Altona has also converted or amended pre-existing loan facilities to become non-convertible, with a fixed interest of 12% and the issue of a total 135m warrants exercisable at a price of 1.5p.

Additionally, holders of the February 2023 convertible loan notes have amended the terms, including the conversion price to 1 pence per share.

The company has since received notices to convert £263,000 principal amount of the CLN, representing 96% of the total in issue, into 26.3m new shares.

Altona has also received notice to convert £70,000 principal amount of the December 2023 Catalyse Capital Ltd Loan into 7m new shares. Both conversions are subject to publication of the prospectus.

In addition, warrants from the loan and from an earlier loan on November 2022, were reset to an exercise price of 1 pence per share and recalculated to a total 67,500,000 warrants.

Subject to publication of the prospectus, the company will also issue 1,834,000 new shares in lieu of deferred cash salary payments for certain directors.

Altona will also issue 931,791 new shares to other existing creditors to the value of £20,486.

Of the total shares to be issued, 5,741,968 will be to persons discharging managerial responsibilities.

Ms Adrian will receive 407,968 resulting in her shareholding of 3,313,274, or 2.04% of shares at admission.

Non-executive chairman Martin Wood will receive 1.04m shares (2,620,056; 1.61%); and non-executive directors Simon Charles 602,000 (0.37%) and Audrey Mothupi 192,000 (0.12%).

Following publication of the prospectus, Altona will convene a general meeting for shareholders’ approval to issue shares for any warrant exercise in connection with the new and Catalyse Capital loans.