Ann: Trading Halt, page-249

Just going over last week’s announcement:

“...The Company can confirm that it does not currently have a mandate in place to raise equity.”

While the above statement was likely to be true at that precise moment in time, the following statement surely cannot have been:

“Firefinch Limited (ASX: FFX) (Firefinch or the Company) refers to an article in the Australian Financial Review Street Talk column on Wednesday 1st December 2021 speculating that the Company proposes to undertake an equity capital raising, based on its purported engagement with fund managers.This speculation is not correct.”

The AFR’s speculation of an impending CR does in fact appear correct. The only “out” is the qualifier “based on its [Firefinch’s] purported engagement with fund managers”. But that’s a pretty long bow to draw - even if the loosely defined “fund managers” were not the original target for the raise but were otherwise ‘in the know’ having picked up on it formally or informally during a roadshow meet about Ganfeng/Leo.

Alternatively it’s a debt capital raise not an equity capital raise - i.e. we are issuing bonds not taking out a loan - but that’s not usually framed as $100m @ 67c which is what seems to be circulating here today.

It will be interesting to see how they wriggle around the language used when the formal announcement drops.