Romarco (R.to) isn’t a junior in the centre of my radar, but its story and the permitting/funding thing it’s being going through have caught the corner of my eye these last few months (not least because somebody whose judgement I trust likes the thing a lot). But the company got me thinking while reading this decent Q&A with its Prez/CEO this morning. Here’s an excerpt:
“So it was able to pull the trigger on a C$300 million financing, the largest in a slew of financings that came to the Canadian junior market in the past few weeks. It was well timed with an increase in the price of gold and mining equities in general. Coming at C$0.58/share it will add some 517 million shares to Romarco’s sharecount of about 725 million shares outstanding (according to TMXmoney.com). Alongside a binding $200 million debt commitment with Caterpillar, Macquarie and Societe Generale, it means Romarco has fully fund the Haile gold project as recently planned.”
“Financial projections, issued by Romarco in November, put startup costs of Haile including initial capital costs and bonding, amongst other items, at $385 million.”
Anyway, go read the whole piece, it’s pretty good with plenty info. Why’s that interesting? Because it’s good to get through a tough permitting schedule, it’s good to have shown positive economics, it’s very good for a junior to be able to use that magic phrase “fully funded” when talking about their project. Romarco should be congratulated for their efforts in the last three months. Meanwhile, its shareholders…
…have seen the stock drop by 20% while gold rose 5%.
The sweet smell of success has more than a hint of KY Jelly in it these days.