COPPER 360 CEO Graham Briggs expects little difficulty securing the final R50m of the struggling miner’s R1.15bn recapitalisation, describing the task in an interview with Currency on Friday as “relatively easy”.
The key features of the recapitalisation, unveiled last week, are a R400m rights offer to existing shareholders with shares offered at 50 South African cents per share, and a shares for debt conversion.
The former Harmony Gold boss, who took charge in June, said the firm had already secured the bulk of funding through a complex restructuring that converts R750m of “exotic debt” into equity and brings in R350m from underwriter Differential Capital.
“We’ve got agreements with each of the exotic debt holders – be they royalties or copper notes; those are all signed up,” Briggs told Currency. “We still have to raise R50m and we’ll be speaking to investors and so on, but that should be relatively easy.”
Shares in the Northern Cape copper miner have plummeted nearly 80% over the past year as it struggled with the transition from exploration to production. The business was producing copper but covering only half its costs, creating what Briggs described as “a big hole in the ground but no profits.”
The recapitalisation removes problematic debt instruments that siphoned revenue rather than profits, allowing the company to retain cash for development. Briggs blamed the original funding structure on founders who prioritised control over value creation.
“You don’t do debt in the early stages,” he told Currency, adding that the restructuring returns Copper 360 to how an exploration company should properly approach the market.
The company targets breaking even at 200 tons of monthly copper production within six months.