NTM Gold lures investors back as capital raising closes over-subscribed

NTM Gold looks to be drawing investors back in, with its recent capital raising closing “significantly oversubscribed” and its share price climbing back up toward a 52-week high.

The company’s (ASX:NTM) luck appears to have turned for the better after it named a new managing director, added prominent Perth businessman Edward van Heemst to the board and topped up the kitty with $1.5 million.

NTM shares closed up over 20 per cent at 6.5c on Monday, placing the company closer to the 52-week peak of 7.8c it hit in mid-March last year.

NTM shares over the past year. Source: Investing.com

Mr van Heemst, who has been an investor in NTM for 12 months or more, acquired a further 1.75 million shares for $77,000 in December, raising his stake to 6.4 per cent and making him a substantial shareholder.

Chief Rodney Foster told Stockhead at the start of last week that Mr van Heemst joining the board was “not out of the question” and by Friday NTM revealed he had been appointed as a non-executive director.

Meanwhile, with the appointment of Andrew Muir as managing director, Mr Foster has shifted into the role of non-executive (technical) director.

Mr Muir, who is an experienced geologist, joins NTM from Argonaut Capital, where he was an associate director with the corporate team. He has also worked as a resource analyst for JP Morgan, Hartleys and PCF Securities.

Argonaut managed the recent capital raising, which was originally targeting $1.25 million at 5c per share — an 8 per cent discount to NTM’s closing share price on January 11.

NTM plans to use the newly raised cash to accelerate drilling at its Redcliffe gold project near Leonora in Western Australia.

The company has just finished drilling 4976 metres across 24 holes at the Nambi and Golden Terrace South deposits and the newly discovered Bindy and KT-1 prospects.

The latest results have returned grades of up to 14.2 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold.

Anything over 5 g/t is considered high-grade. In Australia it has become much harder and more costly to find high-grade gold, especially near surface, given miners’ past penchant for “high-grading” during the downturn.

This has meant grades closer to the surface are now much lower and explorers have to go much deeper to find the better grades.

NTM expects to start its next round of drilling at the Redcliffe project at the end of January.