PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Kin Mining on Monday launched its A$13-million rights issue to fund the next phase of exploration across its gold projects in Western Australia.

Kin last week told shareholders that it would be undertaking the rights issue, after rejecting a non-binding indicative offer from gold miner St Barbara.

The company had received a confidential, non-binding indicative proposal from St Barbara for the purchase of all Kin shares, via a scheme of arrangement, at an implied price of 16c per Kin share, subject to a number of conditions, including a due diligence.

The Kin board considered the offer, and engaged with its major shareholders who hold a collective 25% interest in the company, and determined that the transaction was not acceptable to the major shareholder, and as such, would not meet a requisite 75% acceptance.

Kin on Monday said that it would now undertake a non-underwritten pro-rata 1-for-6.5 non renounceable entitlement offer, priced at 10.5c each, to raise up to A$12.92-million to progress exploration at its Cardinia gold project.

Two of the company’s substantial shareholders have already confirmed that they would subscribe for their entitlements, raising an initial A$3.84-million.

“Our systematic approach to exploration has paid off in spades and given us a much better idea of where and how to target the next phase of drilling – which will be designed both to define new resources and to identify additional discoveries with the potential to deliver a step-change in the scale of the project,” said Kin MD Andrew Munkcton.

“The additional funding will allow us to continue to assess the recent discoveries at Cardinia Hill and follow up on new prospects like Mt Flora, Eagle and Crow – in short to maintain the very strong exploration momentum we have built up over the past two years.

“These other targets have been identified by recent soil geochemistry and modern geophysical surveys over largely untested areas within the highly mineralised Cardinia area. We expect this work to generate new follow-up programmes of work stretching into 2022.”