Paladin looks east, raises Aussie $ 50 million

An abrupt halt in trading this week on Paladin Energy stocks has resulted in the Australian based miner raising approximately A$50 million. Paladin plans to raise approximately A$94 million in capital.
Singaporean entity, Hopu Clean Energy joins China Uranium Corporation as a shareholder and has been given the right to appoint its senior managing director, Wendon Zheng to the Paladin board.  The transaction and capital raising programme will facilitate the repayment of a bond.
Paladin Energy Managing Director John Borshoff said, “We are very pleased with the outcome of the Institutional Entitlement Offer and we thank our existing institutional investors for their ongoing strong support of Paladin.”

Borshoff explained the motivation behind Hopu’s involvement, and said that Paladin was seeking broader Chinese involvement. Key benefits obtainable as outlined by Borshoff was Paladin’s ability to secure a long term strategic partner with the financial capacity while planning to attract other Chinese investors. Said Borshoff, “HOPU’s investment demonstrates its confidence in the uranium industry and its understanding of Paladin’s unique positioning in the uranium sector.”
Releasing its quarterly report in October, Paladin stated its planned installation of a bicarbonate recovery project expected to be commissioned in January 2015. Other focal areas of interest by Paladin is a substantial reduction in production costs, having set a target of US$22 per pound by its financial year 2017. Additionally, Paladin will look to improve its beneficiation recovery process Borshoff explained.
Outlining the outlook for 2015, Borshoff is optimistic and anticipates the production of between 5.4 and 5.8Mlbs of uranium oxide. He said that further cost rationalisation initiatives will be carried out in 2015 without going into further detail. A key motivator for Borshoff is the expectation that the spot price is expected to raise, explaining firm commitments made by China, India and American governments to reduce their emission of harmful gases while movements in the nuclear space in Japan have re-affirmed expectations that a resurgence is expected sooner rather than later.