DUBAI, January 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Centaur Holdings Ltd ("Centaur"), a global investment
holding company with interests and investments ranging from asset
management, wealth management, private equity, venture capital,
mining and natural resources and agricultural investments is
pleased to announce that it has completed a funding package through
a wholly owned subsidiary (the "Company") for IPC Coal (Pty)
Ltd and IPC Mining (Pty) Ltd (collectively "IPC").
(Logo:
http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150118/724683 )
Under the terms of a recently executed Cooperation Agreement,
the Company has agreed to provide secured capital to expand IPC's
existing opencast mining operations at its Nungu Colliery, which
will allow IPC to begin mining the underground reserves in
February 2015.
The remaining extent of Portions 4 and 23 and Portions 67, 68
and 69 of the farm Elandspruit 291 JS form the Nungu Colliery which
measures roughly 3258 hectares. The Nungu Colliery lies 5km West of
Middelburg Town, Mpumalanga Province, Republic of South Africa and benefits from well
established logistics infrastructure.
The Nungu Colliery coal reserves are located beneath the surface
on the remaining extent of Portion 23 and access to the underground
coal reserves is also located on Portion 23 in the high wall of the
previously mined out Nungu West Opencast pit. All the opencast
reserves on Portions 67, 68 and 69 have previously been mined and
the pits have been rehabilitated and the surface levelled. Only the
remaining underground coal reserves are available to be mined.
The Company previously funded IPC to mine the Nungu opencast
reserves and based on IPC's track record, has now agreed to fund an
undisclosed sum to allow IPC to successfully mine the underground
reserves of circa 7m tons of thermal coal.
Centaur and IPC have agreed an option to allow Centaur to
increase the funding package and simultaneously acquire an equity
stake in IPC as a secondary stage to the transaction.
Commenting on the funding package, Centaur Group CEO,
Daniel McGowan, said
"The recently completed funding package for IPC is part of
Centaur's strategic plan for its mining division, with a specific
focus on high quality export thermal coal and established logistics
infrastructure. Centaur and IPC have a strong working relationship,
which has been built on IPC successfully mining the Nungu opencast
reserves. The funding package further demonstrates Centaur's
selective expansion plans in the natural resources sector in
South Africa. Centaur will begin
work on the secondary stage of the transaction during Q1
".
Webber Wentzel acted as Legal
Counsel for Centaur for the security provisions of the Cooperation
Agreement and Centaur Asset Management, a wholly owned subsidiary
of Centaur, acted as financial advisor for the transaction. Ecca
Project Services (Pty) Ltd acted as mining advisor to Centaur and
will maintain a supervisory role throughout the underground mining
'life of mine'. The 'Private Equity' division of the Centaur Group
was responsible for sourcing and managing the IPC transaction.
For more information http://www.centaurmining.com
Disclaimer
This press release is for information purposes only. No
guarantee, representation, undertaking or warranty, express or
implied, is given by Centaur and/or the Centaur Group and/or their
respective directors, officers, partners, shareholders, members
and/or service providers as to the accuracy or completeness of the
information or opinions contained in this press release and no
liability is accepted by such persons for the accuracy or
completeness of any such information or opinions.