Mineral exploration companies dominated this week’s capital raising announcements, along with two health tech stocks, both focussed on specialist devices for the human heart.
One of those healthcare companies, Anteris Technologies (AVR) welcomed a new shareholder, Perceptive Life Sciences Master Fund to its register. With a $28 million investment, Perceptive has taken the place of top shareholder and the funds will allow further clinical development of AVR’s 3D single-piece aortic valve.
Deal Room will be speaking with MD & CEO Wayne Paterson next week.
Med-tech Hydrix Limited (HYD) has the rights to market a heart attack detection implant throughout Australia and Asia.
It’s raised $2.82 million through placement as it seeks approval to begin sales and implants of the AngelMed Guardian device.
Executive chair Gavin Coote said he expected those applications would be successful.
“We’ve got really good underlying revenue growth now in the services business and the disruptive cardiac devices that we’re on the cusp of bringing to market is really what’s going to drive a lot of the future growth for the company,” he said.
“We’ve been pursuing regulatory approval in no less than five jurisdictions over the past six-plus months.”
The company has a market cap of about $18 million and share trade opened at 10.5 cents on market today.
To the mining players now, Rox Resources (RXL) is edging closer to producing gold from its Youanmi project near Mount Magnet – a historical gold site that was mined until 1997.
Managing Director Alex Passmore said the company’s placement was about adding institutions to an otherwise retail-heavy register.
“We recently upgraded the resource at our 70 per cent owned Youanmi gold project in WA to 3 million ounces at 3.8gms and we had significant institutional investor interest following that upgrade,” he said.
“We’ve raised $4M at 40c and it was a very much an institutional-focussed raise, only going to around six different institutions, all of whom we’ve known for a long time and who have been watching the Rox story evolve.”
Rox Resources has a market cap of $70.11 million and share trade opened at 41.5 cents this morning.
The Deal Room will upload the full interview with Rox Resources MD Alex Passmore early next week.
Metallica Minerals (MLM) secured a $3 million capital injection from large international institutions.
Executive chairman Theo Psaros said the company would quickly move into a Definitive Feasibility Study.
“A key focus for us this year is going to be engaging with potential offtake partners, we will be lodging environmental applications probably in May/June of this year and we’ll also continue to study a key point of difference for our project – we will be building our own jetty about 1km away from where we will start mining,” he said.
Metallica Minerals has a market cap of about $18 million and share trade opened at 2.7 cents this morning.
Meanwhile, Manuka Resources (MKR) has been producing gold from its mine in the Cobar Basin, but is transitioning its plant to process silver instead – starting this month – processing stockpiles that lie onsite.
Executive Chairman Dennis Karp said the company had cast a financial safety net in the lead up to the transition, raising $5 million through a Placement.
“We’ve made a number of metallurgical changes and improvements and expect to be the largest primary producer of silver (in Australia) from about May or June of this year onwards,” he said.
“Really all that’s happening is the plant returns to its original purpose. It was designed for silver production, but the two processes are very similar.”
Manuka Resources has a market cap above $82 million and share trade opened at 29.5 centstoday.
Also this week, explorer Rarex Limited (REE) announced it had raised $10 million for its Cummins Range project; Celsius Resources (CLA) completed a $3.4 million raise and Leigh Creek Energy (LCK) and Tombola Gold (TBA) both secured just under $3 million.
In IPO activity, Omnia Metals Group (OM1) made its debut mid-week. It’s a precious and base metals company with projects in WA and NT. It has so far traded below the 20 cents issue price, opening on market today at 18 cents.