Predator Oil & Gas Holdings Plc arranges £2.5M conditional placing
New shares would represent 15.6 per cent of enlarged capital, with one two-year warrant attached to each placing share.
Ines Halvorsen
Around Oct. 20, admission is expected for 166,666,667 new shares after Predator Oil & Gas Holdings Plc LONPRD conditionally arranged a £2.5 million placing on Thursday. The shares cost 1.5 pence each and would represent 15.6 per cent of enlarged capital before warrant exercises.
Shares fell 38.3 per cent to 1.45 pence in London at 11:13 a.m. BST on Thursday. The issue price is a calculated 36.2 per cent below the exchange's displayed Oct. 13 close, as of 11:13 a.m. BST on Thursday.
Predator is a Jersey-based oil and gas company focused on Trinidad and Morocco. The brokered fundraising would pay for production facilities and supplemental drilling costs in Trinidad, alongside testing, planning and studies in Morocco. Predator's Oct. 15 budget assigns £800,000 to Snowcap facilities and £500,000 to supplemental Snowcap drilling costs.
Subscribers would receive a warrant for each placing share, exercisable at 2.5 pence over 24 months from Oct. 15. Completion remains conditional on listing and trading admission, with the expected Oct. 20 date still subject to that step.
"Proceeds from the placing announced today are focussed on exploiting a window of opportunity to accelerate production growth in Trinidad to avail of higher oil price and economies of scale," Predator's non-executive chairman Stephen Boldy said in the release.
Admission Would Expand The Share Count
The placing notice specifies admission to the Official List's equity shares transition category and the London Stock Exchange's main market. The new shares would rank equally with existing stock.
Predator expects 1,071,104,857 voting shares after admission, according to the Oct. 15 notice. Subtracting the placing shares implies 904,438,190 existing shares, so the issue increases the share count by 18.4 per cent.
The brokers would also receive 11,666,666 warrants, exercisable at the placing price for 36 months from Oct. 15. Exercise of either warrant tranche would add shares beyond the placing's stated enlarged capital.
The same budget includes £240,000 for extra Goudron well testing and £175,000 for administrative expenses, both estimated in the Oct. 15 release. Those allocations sit alongside the Snowcap facilities and drilling provisions.
In Morocco, the Oct. 15 allocations include £500,000 for supplemental MOU-6 drilling and testing costs. A further £175,000 covers planning and initial long-lead inventory for deepening MOU-5 by at least 640 metres.
Predator anticipates final MOU-6 test results within two weeks of its Oct. 15 release. The placing would fund preparatory work on MOU-5, while the proposed deepening would test for helium and potential thermogenic gas beneath salt.
Trinidad peer Touchstone Exploration Inc. TSETXP LONTXP reported on Sept. 14 that its rig had mobilized for a two-well WD-4 campaign. Turnkey drilling costs for the second well would be covered by the contractor, reducing Touchstone's capital exposure.
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The next financing milestone is admission around Oct. 20. Predator says Snowcap-3 has received regulatory approval and expects work to start in November, according to its placing notice.
