Mako Gold secures $10 million in strongly supported placement to accelerate gold exploration at Napié

Mako Gold Ltd (ASX:MKG) has received strong support and binding commitments for a two-tranche placement to raise $10 million before costs, positioning the company to accelerate exploration at and around the flagship Napié Gold Project in Côte d’Ivoire. The heavily oversubscribed placement was strongly supported by existing shareholders and introduced a number of new, high-quality domestic and international investors to the Mako share register, validating the company’s project and exploration team. Mako now has a strong cash balance of around $13.8 million to execute a systematic exploration and growth strategy that aims to extend existing high-grade mineralisation, test multiple high priority regional prospects and to support a future maiden mineral resource estimate. “Pleased by overwhelming demand” Managing director Peter Ledwidge said: “We are pleased by the overwhelming demand for our capital raise following the outstanding results from our ongoing drilling campaign at Napié, which continues to demonstrate shallow, high-grade mineralisation over an extensive strike length. “The significant increase to our balance sheet enables Mako to accelerate exploration by having on drill rig concentrating on advancing the Tchaga prospect towards a maiden resource and a second drill rig focusing on the high-quality regional prospects where we will be following up positive drill results from our 2018 maiden drilling program." Aggressive exploration Ledwidge added: “In addition, the funds will allow us to start an aggressive exploration program on our permit applications as soon as they are granted.” Comprising the issue of up to 87 million new shares at an issue price of 11.5 cents per share, the placement will involve: Tranche-1: up to 42.04 million new shares, not subject to shareholder approval and will fall within the company’s placement capacity under ASX listing rule 7.1 and 7.1A; and Tranche-2: up to 44.92 million new shares, issued subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting to be held on or around Monday, September 28. Discovery Capital Partners and Blue Ocean Equities acted as joint lead managers to the placement. The MD concluded: "We are pleased to welcome a number of new sophisticated and institutional shareholders to our register and thank our existing shareholders for their continued support.” Looking ahead Mako Gold is aiming to test the Gogbala prospect and will undertake initial exploration on the two exploration permits under application within 30 kilometres of Barrick Gold Corp’s (NYSE:GOLD) Tongon Gold Mine. Drilling is continuing on budget and schedule with results to be released as they become available.