[miningmx.com] — ANGLOGOLD Ashanti wants to convert the balance of an outstanding loan it provided to Russian miner Trans-Siberian Gold into shares.
Trans-Siberian Gold on Wednesday said it had been notified by AngloGold Ashanti, a “major shareholder”, of its wish to convert the outstanding balance of a loan – which amounted to $2.4m or about R18.9m – into shares.
AngloGold’s request follows little over a week after Trans-Siberian Gold’s other major shareholder, the UFG Private Equity Fund, notified the company that it wished to exercise the option to convert the outstanding balance of two loans into ordinary shares of 10 pence each.
UFG’s outstanding loan balances amount to about $4.4m including accrued interest.
In April AngloGold agreed to provide the company with loan finance of $2.3m on commercial terms following a $4m increase in the pre start-up costs of Asacha, one of its two flagship projects.
Repayments were scheduled in two equal tranches on the fourth and fifth anniversaries of the commencement of gold production at Asacha.
As part of this agreement AngloGold had been given an option to convert any part of the loan into shares.
The conversion requests of both UFG and AngloGold will now be put to shareholders “as soon as practicable”.
Trans-Siberian Gold anticipates that the new ordinary shares when issued to cover the loans would result UFG’s holding increasing from 54.42% to about 54.88% and AngloGold’s from 30.70% to about 30.91%.
