According to President Justin Reid, at least. That’s because on November 1st he told the world that the final financing for Shahuindo would be “finished very shortly” and a debt package would be rolled in “over the next couple of months”. For evidence, here’s an extract from this interview in The Gold Report way back when dates were all 2013:
The Gold Report: Turning to your financing, on Oct. 11 Sulliden successfully closed a $40M bought deal co-led by National Bank Financial and Scotia Capital. Are these funds going toward construction? And how much more money will you need for the completion of construction?
Justin Reid: The deal was very well taken and in the current environment we’re very happy that it went so well. We have about $70M in the bank right now. We’re looking to bring on contractors in our mine operation, which will save another $25–30M on our capex. What you’ll see over the next couple of months is that we will roll in a debt package of between $50M and $60M, which will provide all the capital we need for construction.
We mandated Credit Suisse and Barclays last November for a $125M facility. Because of the optimization that we are doing and our current cash balance, we obviously won’t need $125M, but we’ll be able to finalize that over the next few months and bring in just enough to cover our development costs and working capital requirements during the construction and ramp-up phases. We are working through the due diligence right now and expect to have that finished very shortly. (continues here)
The last time I looked, “a couple” was a direct synonym of “two” (e.g. I checked whether my wife wanted to bring a third person into our relationship and remain a married couple; she said no). And here we are over two months laster…and counting…with no financing package announced. Having a problem, Mister Tagliamonte? Any hitches over there, Mister Bharti? Spoke a little too soon, perchance Mister Reid? That due dilly session maybe thrown up an issue or two about the project, nice banker people?
And another thing Justin, about that $40m placement being “well taken” comment. I mean, for one it had to close at $40m because it was a bought freakin’ deal, Juzz. The other thing is that it had an overallotment facility which meant (and we quote) “the Underwriters have the option to purchase an additional 5,895,000 Common Shares from the Company at the Offering Price for a period of 30 days from the closing of the Offering.” Any news on that overallotment being ‘well-taken’ too, Justy? Strange how we heard nothing on that once the 30 days were up, almost as if you couldn’t shift any more paper. And gotta wonder what Scotia, knee deep in $1.02 shares that they can’t get rid of, now think of the deal and that maybe they’re not so bullish about the future of Shahuindo.
But hey, maybe it’s just me being way too cynical and SUE.to come out with news of the closed financing package in the next few days. Time will tell.