Dateline’s biggest backer and chairman take a big chunk out of the gold explorer
Mining
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Dateline Resources’ largest shareholder and its chairman now own nearly 80 per cent of the junior gold explorer between them.
Southern Cross Exploration’s (ASX:SXX) stake in Dateline has jumped from 39.95 per cent to 60.3 per cent as a result of its participation in a recent rights issue.
Meanwhile, chairman Mark Johnson’s shareholding has climbed to 18.06 per cent from 12.58 per cent, also due to his participation in the rights issue.
Mr Johnson underwrote the rights issue to the value of $1.6m, taking his total commitment to over $3m.
With hefty ownership of over 60 per cent some might question Southern Cross’ intentions, but apparently a takeover is not on the agenda.
Southern Cross director Stephen Baghdadi, who is also a director of Dateline, said a takeover is “definitely not” the company’s plan of attack.
“The longer-term plan is very much for Dateline to place the shortfall in the rights issue and we will probably end up back at 33.46 per cent, which is where we started from, and Dateline will go on and develop their projects in Colorado,” he told Stockhead.
Southern Cross has a smaller market cap than Dateline at $6.5m at a higher share price of 0.6c because it has less shares on issue.
Dateline has a market cap of $8.8m and is trading at 0.2c with 4.4 billion shares on issue.
Dateline has about $3m in the bank from the rights issue and is “confident” it will place the $5m shortfall within the requisite three-month timeframe.
Mr Baghdadi said Dateline also has about $1m worth of “friendly debt” owing to Mr Johnson and Southern Cross.
Dateline owns about 2000 acres of freehold land that hosts three mines and historic gold workings in Gunnison County, Colorado.
The company also owns a permitted mill that it has commissioned and produced concentrate from.
The region is part of the “Gold Brick District” of the Colorado Mineral Belt, which has produced over 25 million ounces of gold.
However, no new significant exploration or precious metal mining has occurred in Colorado since the Summitville disaster of 1992.
Dateline undertook its recent $14.5m rights issue to fund the exploration and development of its flagship Gold Links project.
