AFR: Nickel, cobalt explorer Ardea raising $20m

Listed West Australian nickel and cobalt explorer Ardea Resources was pitching investors for $20 million this morning.

The offer was priced at 70¢ a share, an 11.9 per cent discount to the last close and an 8.6 per cent discount to the five-day volume-weighted average price.

Potential investors were told Ardea would primarily use the money for sulphide drilling, regional nickel exploration, studies and working capital.

Ardea’s Kalgoorlie Nickel Project is in the pre-feasibility stage and has told investors it’s the largest emerging nickel resource in Australia.

The term sheet said with 830Mt resources, 0.71 per cent average nickel grade (and 5,879 kt of contained nickel), 0.05 per cent average cobalt grade (and 384 kt of contained cobalt), Ardea’s Kalgoorlie Nickel Project is bigger than BHP’s Nickel-only Mt Keith ,which is in operation.

Petra Capital was the sole lead manager and bookrunner to the raise. It had room for oversubscriptions, according to the term sheet.

Bids were due 3pm Friday.

Ardea had a $110 million odd market capitalisation before the raise.

Source: The Australian Financial Review