Friday 22 February 2013

Newcastle Minerals CEO buys more shares in public market


Newcastle Minerals (CVE:NCM) CEO Mike Romanik has just acquired another 100,000 shares of the company, on top of a series of recent share acquisitions by the chief - a show of confidence in the junior mineral explorer that has just had a restructuring plan approved. 
The latest share acquisition was completed on Tuesday in the public market. Shares of the company are trading at 1.5 cents. 
The Canadian explorer is set for a busy year ahead, with a planned reinvention of sorts, including a restructuring and rebranding of the company in a bid to raise funds for its projects in two of the prolific mining belts of Ontario. 
Iamgold (TSE:IMG) (NYSE:IAG) is Newcastle’s largest shareholder with a 10% holding, and has already expressed an interest in participating in the junior explorer’s next financing, which is part of a restructuring plan announced last month . 
Along with the financing, the plan includes a share consolidation, a name change, and a trading symbol change – all part of its “clean up” strategy to better position the company for long-term growth. 
The share consolidation, which received shareholder approval from a vote held February 18, will exchange one new common share for every five old shares. This will reduce Newcastle’s issued and outstanding shares to 20.7 million from 103.6 million. 
Shareholders also approved the company changing its name to GoldON Resources, and its trading symbol to “GLD”. 
The company’s focus is on two gold projects with large scale potential that are strategically located in the Swayze and Pickle Lake gold mining belts of Ontario. Newcastle says the properties are in “mining-friendly, politically stable jurisdictions, with excellent access and infrastructure”. 
Indeed, the 6,640 hectare Swayze gold project adjoins Iamgold’s multi-million ounce Cote gold project, where 85 holes were drilled in the fourth quarter. Iamgold’s Cote gold project’s latest resource stands at 7.61 million gold ounces, with the property expected to go into production sometime in 2017. 
Newcastle is expecting an NI 43-101 technical report on the adjoining Swayze property to be finalized shortly, anticipating that the report will recommend a full scale geological program, diamond drilling and surveying. 
Its other main focus is its 15,500 hectare Pickle Lake gold project within the Pickle Lake greenstone belt in northwestern Ontario, where more than 2.2 million ounces of gold have been produced. The property ties onto both ends of PC Gold’s Pickle Crow mine trend and the past-producing Pickle Crow mine, which produced 1.45 million ounces of gold from 1935 to 1966. 
Earlier this month, the company reported it found a mineralized gold horizon at surface on the Fault Creek area of its Pickle Lake property, which it says is consistent with the three past-producing mines in the region, including the 650,000 ounce Central Patricia mine that adjoins the property. 
The company has said it expects to raise up to $2 million from the current financing to fund its exploration plans for the year. 

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