Hancock stumps up big bucks in $5m White Cliff raise

White Cliff Minerals has bolstered its funding for a planned maiden drill program at its Rae copper-silver project in Canada, with a $5 million capital raise at a premium to the market price – cornerstoned by the company’s strategic advisor, John Hancock.

While Hancock – a well-known mining identity and son of Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart – took up half of the raised amount, management says it also attracted widespread support from new and existing shareholders and institutional funds based locally and in the United Kingdom, United States and Europe.

Like his famous namesake, who became the first person to sign the US Declaration of Independence on August 2 in 1776 after its adoption on the fourth of July that same year, Hancock was at the forefront of the capital-raising queue. And like the saying goes in relation to the leading American Revolution figure, he was keen to “put his John Hancock on” his significant $2.5 million equity contribution paperwork.

Hancock has also convinced a few close friends to join him on the ride, as White Cliff positions itself to become an important player in the Canadian copper and silver space.

The company is issuing 200 million shares priced at 2.5c each – a 4 per cent premium to the closing price before the trading halt that was imposed prior to the reveal – with each coming gift-wrapped with a free unlisted option for every 4 shares, exercisable at 4c within three years from the date of issue.

Funds are expected to be available to management next Tuesday, with the allotment of shares and options the following day.

White Cliff Minerals managing director Troy Whittaker said: “In my opinion, these projects represent the best risk-reward commodity-based investment opportunity, certainly in North America and possibly the world at the current moment. The Rae Copper Silver Project and the Great Bear IOCG + Silver are amazing properties and with this funding now completed, we can focus on demonstrating this.”

Hancock says the raise has reduced uncertainty for existing shareholders and provides the company with “a clear runway” ahead of a period of further exploration.

Management noted it is awaiting results from a comprehensive aerial geophysical campaign at Rae and also remaining assays from drilling conducted across the project site.

In addition to the maiden program at Rae, it is also eyeing a drill campaign at its Great Bear Lake project mid-season next year. The ground is prospective for copper, gold, silver and uranium.

The company disclosed on Friday that it recently unearthed a succession of stunning high-grade rock chips, providing a hint of a sizeable copper discovery at the Rae project. It added that a collection of about 100 samples in its maiden rock-chip sampling program were obtained from five prospective exploration districts targeting wide-spread copper mineralisation.

White Cliff has been a first-mover in the region, laying claim to two premium sites – Rae in Canada’s Nunavut territory and the Great Bear Lake project in the neighbouring Northwest Territories – ahead of the latest land-grab happening in the area following recent record high copper prices.

Management notes that it has received a suite of impressive copper, silver and gold results from the first trio of targets at Vision, Wanda and Hulk within its Rae ground.

The Don prospect within the Vision exploration district is where notable results that included a 64 per cent copper pearler was found, in addition to super-high grades of 62 per cent, 50.48 per cent and 43.77 per cent copper and accompanying silver assaying up to 223 grams per tonne.

The Vision District is a 10km-long structural corridor sited along a sub-parallel dilutional jog, which the company believes has provided the necessary depositional environment for copper and precious metal accumulation. While it is early days in the exploration process, management suggests the Don and Pat prospects could be contiguous, giving rise to a mammoth 5km district-scale, copper-rich horizon. 

At Great Bear Lake, the initial field program unveiled a swag of targets for further exploration, including outcropping copper-uranium-cobalt-silver mineralisation and several off-the-charts uranium readings from a hand-held scintillometer.

The project sits 240km south-west of the Rae project, with 2900 square kilometres of ground within the iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG)-prospective Great Bear magmatic zone (GBMZ). Intriguingly, the GBMZ has been assessed by the Northwest Territories Geosciences office as having the greatest potential for a substantial-scale IOCG and uranium mineral deposit in Canada.

A few of the more interesting targets generated from the company’s field program include the Glacier, Mile Lake Skarn breccia, Rust and Spud Bay prospects.

The Glacier prospect comprises an outcropping IOCG mineral system of more than 1100m of strike length that sits 1km north-east of the historic Echo Bay mine. At the eastern extent of the strike, a body of brecciated, potassic-altered andesite hosts semi-massive chalcopyrite, with the copper mineral estimated to be about 10m in thickness and continuous for 60m.

White Cliff –_with some powerful financial backing on board – appears to have a couple of Canadian beauties on its hands. And management will now be hoping further exploration at the two sites will prove that true beauty lies beneath the surface.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au