UPDATE: 15:52BST – Tertiary Minerals saw theirs shares fall today following a 325% surge post RNS yesterday. The share fall is not attributed to the loss but rather a recovery from the rise yesterday.
Tertiary Minerals (LON:TYM) have seen their shares dive nearly 50% despite the firm narrowing its annual loss.
The firm noted that reduced impairment charges was the main driver for the narrowed annual loss, however shareholders do not seem so optimistic.
The Chairman of the firm commented on the loss by saying:
“Whilst we raised a modest amount of money in early 2019 to fund our activities in the first half of the year, fundraising for Tertiary and its peers at near market prices has been nearly impossible in the second half of 2019 and we have not been prepared to accept opportunistic offers of heavily discounted share placings.
Instead, following the end of the financial year, we accepted an offer of funding from Bergen Global Opportunity Fund, LP, a U.S. based institutional investment fund and raised an initial £232,000 before expenses through the issuance of zero-coupon convertible securities as part of a facility having a nominal value of up to £653,000. “
Shares in Tertiary Minerals trade at 0.39p (-49.02%). 19/2/20 14:17BST.
The mineral miner told the market that it had reported a pretax loss of £831,507 in the year which ended in September.
This was much better than the loss recorded a year before this, which stood at £2.3 million. Impairment charges fell considerably, from £2 million to £442,917.
Despite impairment charges falling, revenues also fell to £189,742 from £218,841, which is what shareholders have seemed to note.
The Chairman Patrick Cheetham commented:
“As a Board we have faced some difficult decisions in 2019 as our fluorspar projects have not sustained the value they once added to the Company and our efforts to acquire a more advanced project are limited by our size and available financial resources. Consequently, the Board initiated a parallel back-to-its-roots strategy of gold and base metal exploration with an emphasis on low cost value adding acquisition and exploration of gold and base metal projects in Nevada, USA. Nevada is ranked as the most desirable mining jurisdiction in the world by the Fraser Institute and in 2018 produced 5.58 million ounces of gold …
Market commentators are anticipating a better year for small cap companies in 2020 and we look forward to reporting news from our exciting new gold and base metal projects in Nevada over this coming year.
Our Annual General Meeting for the year ended 30 September 2019 will be held in our offices in Macclesfield this year, on Thursday 19 March 2020.”
Tertiary see progress in Nevada
A few months back, Tertiary minerals saw their shares rally as they reported zinc mineralization in Nevada.
The Company said that the two zones – the Valley Prospect and the East Slope Prospect – would now undergo follow-up exploration and drilling.
Preliminary observation of the Valley Prospect revealed a thick skarn zone potentially 350 metres long and 8 metres thick. A rock sample taken from historic shaft spoil assayed 7.5% zinc, 4.3% lead and 180 g/t of silver.
This included a 175 metre long 250-500 ppm zinc soil anomaly. Past rock sample assays display up to 20.9% zinc, 0.11% cobalt and 198 ppm silver.
The narrowed loss for Tertiary is good news, however shareholders have not reacted in the most optimistic tone. The firm has work to do across 2020 to see whether it can swing to a profit and win over shareholder sentiment.
