Ann: Trading Halt, page-11

Trade war setback for Wesfarmers bid


AUST Business 17May (Extract)
The US-China trade war could throw up new hurdles to Wesfarmer’s hopes of winning over Lynas shareholders, as a second WA rare earths play suffers a new setback.
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WA heavy rare earth hopeful Northern Minerals is understood to have struck fresh trouble in its quest to join the export market. The company is set to emerge from a trading halt this morning to announce that the Australian Taxation Office has denied it payment of the $10.8 million second tranche of its 2018 research and development spending refund. The rejection could force the company back into the capital markets to fund ongoing work at its Browns Range project in WA’s north. Northern Minerals has taken in $31m on the market this year, and has anther $10m in capital still to flow into its coffers.

But it has used $24m of that to repay debts — partly to a specialised funder that lent it cash against its expected 2018 R&D refund , and partly to “death spiral” lender Lind Partners. It still owes almost $5.5m, according to a recent presentation, including another $3.5m borrowed against its R&D refund and $1.9m owed to Lind. The company had $9.1m at the end of March. It last traded at 7.6c.