The electric car revolution has delivered many meaningful impacts, including somewhat leveling the playing field for miners of all sizes on the hunt from industry-critical metals like lithium, manganese and cobalt.
It's also helped some funders loosen pursestrings that were seemingly tied in knots in recent years. Vancouver-based Bankers Cobalt Corp. (TSX-V:BANC) is focusing its efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the country formerly known as Zaire that produces about 60% of the world's cobalt each year, primarily as a by-product of copper mining.
The company holds 14 separate mineral concessions spanning more than 210 square kilometers in the heart of the southern DRC copperbelt. The DRC is infamous for its political instability and criticisms of ignoring child and other labour laws, but that by no means implies improprieties by the majority of miners in the country. Glencore, (LSE:GLEN), the biggest cobalt producer in the world, has its portfolio deeply rooted in the DRC.
In October, Bankers Cobalt completed its acquisition of Katanga Cobalt Corp. in an all-stock transaction giving them the strong presence in the DRC.
Bankers was an illiquid stock trading under the name Nomad Ventures until 12 days before the merger was finalized, a milestone that provided a boon to shares and volume for the stock.
Thanks to a private placement announced today as completed, Bankers is flush with cash for its exploration efforts in large mid-Africa country. The placement was announced last month as a $6.0 million raise, but it was bumped up to $7.0 million due to what management called "heavy demand."
Bankers gave favorable terms for the raise, selling units for $0.40. A unit consisted on one common share of BANC and a warrant to buy another share for $0.60 within a three-year period. Shares of BANC have never closed below 40 cents in their limited trading history and even hit a high of 73 cents on November 27.
In Thursday action, shares are up 3.33% at 62 cents as the day draws near the closing bell.
