Crocodile Gold has raised A$150 million in an equity placement priced at A$7.00 a share, the company announced, funding its growth programme across its Victorian gold operations at Fosterville and Stawell.
The raise is the other side of the gold price. With bullion holding above 4,100 dollars an ounce, Australian producers with credible growth projects are being funded at prices that would have been unthinkable two years ago, and boards are taking the money while the window is open rather than after the next feasibility study.
Dilution discipline is the question investors will put to the print that follows: at these prices the sector is choosing to fund ounces with equity rather than debt, which de risks balance sheets and quietly caps per share leverage to the gold price.