Energy Metals prices two PIPEs totaling C$44 million; Sunesis' stock jumps on word of $45 million PIPE

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, March 17 - Two Canadian offerings led PIPE activity to round out the week as Energy Metals Corp. priced a C$22 million brokered and a C$22 million non-brokered deal.

The brokered deal includes 4 million units at C$5.50 each. The brokered offering is being placed through a syndicate of agents led by Sprott Securities Inc. and GMP Securities LP and the syndicate has a greenshoe for up to 1 million units.

The units are comprised of one share and one half-share warrant. Each whole warrant allow for the purchase of another share at C$6.50 for two years.

The non-brokered offering includes the same number of units under the same terms as the brokered deal, including the greenshoe for up to 1 million units.

The two deals are expected to close April 6.

After the deal was announced Friday afternoon, the company's stock lost C$0.14, or 2.5%, to end at C$5.46 (TSX Venture: EMC). On March 16, the stock gained C$0.30 to end at C$5.60.

The volume of the shares traded Friday rose with 307,633 shares traded compared to the average 197,192.

The placement comes just a few days after Energy Metals announced its plans to merge with Quincy Energy Corp. Under the terms of the merger, Quincy will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Metals with Quincy's shareholders receiving 0.2 shares of Energy Metals for each share of Quincy.

Energy Metals closed its merger with Standard Uranium Inc. on March 13.

Proceeds will be used for exploration and development on the company's La Palangana uranium property in Texas and for the refurbishment of the Hobson Central ISL uranium processing facility, and the development of the company's Wyoming properties. The rest will be used for general corporate purposes.

Vancouver, B.C.-based Energy Metals is a uranium exploration company.

Sunesis shares gain on PIPE

Moving to the biotech sector, Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. saw its stock jump by more than 11.4% after the company announced its plans to close a $45 million stock offering.

Sunesis plans to sell 7.25 million shares at $6.20 each to investors including Alta Partners, Deerfield Management, Baker Brothers Investments and Warburg Pincus LLC. Those investors will also receive warrants for 2.17 million shares - for an extra $0.125 each. The warrants are exercisable at $6.21 each.

On word of the deal, Sunesis stock gained 71 cents, or 11.41%, to end the day at $6.93 (Nasdaq: SNSS).

The offering also sent the volume of the company's stock through the roof, with 101,530 shares traded, compared to the average 21,396 shares.

"They seem to be responding well," said one sellside source familiar with the offering Friday. "[It] looks pretty good to me, a strong deal."

S.G. Cowen & Co., LLC was the placement agent.

Proceeds will be used for clinical development on the company's oncology products, including phase 2 clinical trails on its non-small cell and small-cell lung and ovarian cancer treatments and phase 1 and 2 clinical trails on SNS-595 to treat acute leukemia. The company will also use the proceeds on a phase 1 and 2 clinical trial in advanced solid tumors and a phase 1 trial in B-cell malignancies with its SNS-032 compound.

"With this financing, we have over $90 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities on a pro forma basis as of Dec. 31, 2005," said Daniel Swisher, the company's chief executive officer, in a news release. "We are pleased with the quality of the new investors we were able to attract to this offering and we also wish to thank our current investors for their continued support."

San Francisco-based Sunesis develops small molecule therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.

Unigene to close $13 million stock deal

Unigene Laboratories, Inc. disclosed the terms of a $13 million stock deal Friday, sending its stock up more than 1.5% after gaining substantially more in early trading.

The company was slated to close the placement late Friday, selling 4 million shares at $3.25 each to a group of institutions. The price per share is a 14.5% discount to Unigene's closing stock price of $3.80 on Friday.

The investors will also receive warrants for 1 million shares, exercisable at $4.25 each, an 11.8% premium to the closing stock price Friday.

As of March 1, Unigene had 83,418,815 outstanding common shares.

After the deal was announced Friday morning, Unigene's stock gained 6 cents, or 1.6%, to settle at $3.80 (OTCBB: UGNE). The stock had gained as much as 4.8% in earlier trading.

The company intends to use the proceeds to repay existing debt.

"This transaction significantly strengthens Unigene's financial position, allowing us to expand our existing programs while continuing to reduce corporate debt and should further help to improve the prospects for listing our common stock on a national exchange," said Warren Levy, the company's CEO, in a news release from Friday morning. "Furthermore, we believe that increasing institutional ownership of our stock is desirable and may provide additional support and stability for future growth."

The offering comes just a day after the company's year-end earnings report was released.

Unigene reported a net loss of $496,000 for the year ended Dec. 31, a reduction from the $5.94 million net loss in 2004.

For the fourth quarter of 2005, Unigene reported a net loss of $2.65 million. For the same period ended Dec. 31, 2004, the company had a net loss of $1.75 million.

In the first quarter of 2005, Unigene reported that its highest intraday trading price was $2.63 and the lowest was $1.49. In the fourth quarter of 2005, its highest intraday trading price was $4.63 and the lowest was $2.71.

Based in Fairfield, N.J., Unigene is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing oral and nasal delivery of peptide drugs to treat ailments like osteoporosis.

Nevada Geothermal's C$15 million unit deal

In other Canadian resources offerings, Nevada Geothermal Power Inc. arranged a C$15 million offering of 16,666,667 units of one share and one warrant.

The units were priced at C$0.90 each, a 19% discount to the company's closing stock price of C$1.12 on March 16.

The warrants are exercisable at C$1.40 each for two years.

Nevada Geothermal's stock fell 6.25%, or 7 cents, to end at C$1.05 (TSX Venture: NGP).

The offering includes an over-allotment option for up to 3 million additional units.

Proceeds will be used for development on the Blue Mountain, Black Warrior, Pumpernickel and Crump Geyser geothermal projects. The rest will be used for working capital.

Based in Vancouver, B.C., Nevada Geothermal develops geothermal projects.

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