Talga Group is seeking to raise $25 million to fund its Electric Vehicle Anode pilot plant, as part of the development of the Vittangi Anode Project in northern Sweden.
Talga Group is seeking to raise $25 million to fund its Electric Vehicle Anode pilot plant, as part of the development of the Vittangi Anode Project in northern Sweden.
The industrial minerals company, which is headquartered in West Perth, primarily develops graphene and micrographite product for the advanced materials market, sourcing graphite ore from its 100 per cent-owned deposits in Sweden.
Talga announced today that it had launched a fully underwritten institutional placement of new fully paid ordinary shares to raise $25 million, as well as a non-underwritten share purchase plan (SPP) to eligible shareholders to raise up to $10 million.
The proceeds will go towards the construction of the Electric Vehicle Anode pilot plant, estimated at $22 million, and will also fund general working capital including transaction costs and supporting ongoing project development (anticipated to represent $3 million).
Talga noted that any SPP proceeds would be used for additional working capital and to support the future development of Vittangi.
Talga managing director Mark Thompson expects the Electric Vehicle Anode plant to be operational in 2021.
“The EV revolution is here today and Talga is ideally positioned to build a new low-cost, large-scale graphite anode supply chain outside of Asia to serve the European and North American markets,” Mr Thompson said.
“Our recently announced Niska scoping study confirms the scalability of our project and supports a 450 per cent increase to our current European anode production plans, taking our planned total anode production to meet approximately 100 gigawatt hours of annual Li-ion battery capacity in 2025-26.
“The unique properties of our Vittangi graphite deposit result in materially higher anode yields. This, in combination with access to low-cost 100 per cent renewable power and proximity to our end customers, means that Talga will be able to deliver a graphite anode with a fraction of the emissions footprint compared to incumbent synthetic products.”
The group’s placement of new shares to eligible investors to rise $25 million is being conducted today, with new shares under the placement to be issued at $1.45 per share – representing a 17.8 per cent discount to Talga’s last traded price of $1.76.
The Placement will result in the issue of 17.2 million new shares, representing approximately 6.5 per cent of Talga’s existing fully paid ordinary shares on issue.
The group will remain in a trading halt pending completion of the placement, which is being managed and underwritten by Morgan Stanley Australia Securities Limited.
Following the completion of the placement, Talga will offer all eligible shareholders in Australia and New Zealand the opportunity to participate in the non-underwritten SPP to raise up to $10 million.
Eligible shareholders may apply for up to $30,000 of new shares under the SPP.
The SPP offer period is anticipated to open Monday December 21 and run until Friday January 15.
Under the SPP, Talga shares will be offered at the same issue price as the placement, at $1.45 per share.
As the SPP is not underwritten, the SPP may raise more or less than this amount.
