Empire Energy raises $4 million from loan with warrants; Strategic Nevada prices C$6.25 million deal

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, Jan. 10 - Despite better stocks and a significant drop in oil prices Wednesday, private placement volume continued to lag.

The meager activity was led by news that Empire Energy Corp. International sealed a $4 million loan offering for subsidiary Great South Land Minerals Ltd.

Wind City Inc. was the investor in the deal and received two tranches of warrants. The first tranche included warrants for 26,666,667 class A shares and the second for 33,333,333 class A shares. The warrants from both tranches are exercisable at $0.15 each through Nov. 30, 2007.

The loan matures May 31, 2008 and bears interest at Prime rate plus 400 basis points.

Empire completed a very similar offering with Wind City back in November. Wind City purchased another $4 million note from Great South Land in that deal.

When the November offering closed, the stock gained half a penny to end at $0.0925.

On Wednesday, Empire's stock gained two-tenths of a cent, or 1.98%, to settle at $0.103 (OTCBB: EEGC).

Great South Land used the proceeds to fund seismic services provided by Terrex Seismic and to purchase a new mobile oil drilling rig. The rest will be used for general corporate purposes.

Based in Lenexa, Kan., Empire Energy is an oil and natural gas exploration company with properties in Tasmania.

In the broader market, oil prices gave up $1.62 to end the session at $54.02 per barrel.

Looking at stocks, The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 25.56 to settle at 12,442.16; the Nasdaq composite index advanced 15.50 to close at 2,459.33; and the Standard & Poor's 500 composite index ended up 2.74 at 1,414.85.

Strategic Nevada's offerings

Moving north to Canada, Strategic Nevada Resources Corp. priced two offerings - a brokered deal and a non-brokered deal - for C$6.255 million Wednesday.

The brokered portion, of which Pacific International Securities Inc. is the placement agent, includes up to 7 million units of one share and one half-share warrant at C$0.75 each.

The non-brokered deal includes up to 1.34 million units under the same terms.

The unit price is an 11.7% discount to the company's C$0.85 closing stock price on Tuesday.

Each whole warrant is exercisable at C$1.25 for 18 months.

Proceeds will be used for exploration and rehabilitation on the company's recently acquired Crescent Silver Mine property. The remainder will be used for working capital.

The company's stock slipped by 2.35%, or 2 cents, to close at C$0.83 Wednesday (TSX Venture: SNS).

Vancouver, B.C.-based Strategic Nevada is a mineral exploration company.

Denison stock dips

In other natural resources news, Denison Mines Corp. saw it stock drop on Wednesday, a day after wrapping a private placement for C$105,875,725.

The stock gave up 1.52%, or 16 cents, to close at C$10.40 (Toronto: DML). On Tuesday, the company's stock fell 1.77%, or 19 cents, to end the day at C$10.56.

In the placement, the company issued shares at C$11.75 each.

The deal priced in December as a C$100 million offering under the same terms.

Toronto-based Denison is a uranium exploration company with projects in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan and in the southwestern United States.

Cathay Forest's C$5.2 million deal

Elsewhere in Canadian offerings, Cathay Forest Products Corp. pocketed C$5.2 million from a private placement priced back in November.

News of the deal sent the company's stock up 19.35%, or 12 cents, to close at C$0.74 (TSX Venture: CFZ). Volume also took off with 514,767 shares traded compared with the average 45,442 shares.

The company issued a total of 10 million shares in the deal. The first tranche of the offering, for 6.03 million shares, settled on Dec. 20.

Jennings Capital Inc. was the placement agent.

The proceeds will be used for the acquisition of standing timber plantations, the advancement of the Jiangsu Riverbank program, the start of the Heilongjiang North Eastern project and for working capital.

The company settled another private placement of units in August when it sold 18,824,833 units at C$0.55 each. The units included one share and one half-share warrant with each whole warrant exercisable at C$0.75 for two years.

Toronto-based Cathay is a forest plantation company focused on land acquisition, tree planting and harvesting in China.

Targeted Genetics stock falls

Targeted Genetics Corp.'s stock has been seesawing this week after the company announced the pending completion of an $8.72 million stock offering. The deal is set to close Thursday.

The stock slipped again on Wednesday after making a slight comeback Tuesday. On Wednesday, the stock gave up 4.16%, or 18 cents, to end at $4.15, losing another 3 cents in after-hours trading (Nasdaq: TGEN). On Tuesday, the company's stock climbed a penny, or 0.23%, to settle at $4.33 and on Monday, after the deal was announced, the stock settled down $1.09 to close at $4.32.

Volume of Targeted's shares traded Wednesday continued to drop. A total of 153,430 shares were traded compared with the average 523,092 shares. There were 218,905 shares traded Tuesday and 611,105 shares traded Monday.

In the placement, Targeted plans to sell shares at $4.00 each to a group of institutional investors, including Special Situations Fund's Special Situations Life Sciences Fund and Special Situations Fund III. Greenway Capital is also participating in the offering. The price per share represents a 16% discount to the company's 45-day trailing average closing stock price.

Proceeds will be used for clinical and preclinical programs as well as for working capital and general corporate purposes.

Pacific Growth Equities, LLC was the placement agent.

Seattle-based Targeted Genetics develops molecular therapies to treat acquired and inherited diseases like inflammatory arthritis, AIDS prophylaxis, congestive heart failure and Huntington's disease.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.