Chalice Mining subsidiary Falcon Metals has raised $30 million through an initial public offering (IPO) involving both new and existing shareholders.
Comprising both a priority and shortfall offer, the IPO was oversubscribed and comes as Falcon looks to list on the ASX for the first time.
The exploration company will be the new face of Chalice’s Pyramid Hill, Viking and Mt Jackson gold projects in Victoria and Western Australia.
Located near Bendigo in the same region as Kirkland Lake’s Tier 1 Fosterville gold mine, Pyramid Hill will be Falcon’s primary focus once it has listed on the ASX.
Spanning more than 5000 square kilometres of licences, with Pyramid Hill, Falcon will hold the largest exploration holding of any company in this prospective region. Falcon hopes to commence drilling activities at the project in January 2022.
Falcon will issue one share for every 3.034 Chalice shares held on the record date of December 13. The shares will be distributed to Chalice shareholders by way of a pro-rata in-specie transfer, expected to occur on December 15.
Subject to ASX approval and the satisfaction of other conditions, Falcon aims to list on the ASX and commence trading from December 22.
The spin-out of the Pyramid Hill, Viking and Mt Jackson gold projects comes as Chalice looks to focus its efforts on the fancied Julimar and West Yilgarn nickel-copper-platinum group metals (PGE) projects in Western Australia.
Julimar consists of the Gonneville nickel-copper-platinum deposit, which recently made headlines for becoming the largest nickel sulphide discovery in more than 20 years.
Falcon will be led by an accomplished team, including esteemed explorer Mark Bennett as non-executive chair, geologist and executive Tim Markwell as managing director, while Chalice managing director and chief executive officer Alex Dorsch will join Falcon’s board.
When first announced, Dorsch said the demerger plans followed a board review of Chalice’s portfolio.
“The proposed demerger provides an exciting opportunity for our shareholders to benefit from the creation of a standalone, well-funded Australian gold exploration company with a high-quality asset base in Victoria and WA,” he said.
“This review concluded that the creation of a new gold-focussed explorer would be the optimal structure to ensure that the full potential of the gold portfolio can be realised, while allowing Chalice to continue to focus on completing the resource drill-out and rapidly advancing studies at Julimar.”