article in the australian 24 sep 2010

$20m investor to ease Cudeco volatility

Cudeco has brought aboard an institutional investor in a $20 million capital raising it hopes will stabilise "recent volatility" in the stock.
The company, which is developing the Rocklands copper project near Cloncurry, yesterday said it had placed 10 million new shares at $2 each to a single institutional investor.
With the new shareholder, which has British and US offices, now holding 6.84 per cent of Cudeco, its identity should be revealed to the stockmarket in coming days.
But the company was tight-lipped yesterday at the investor's request, revealing only that it was an institutional global resource investor that was a client of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
Perth boutique investment bank Azure Capital is the lead manager for the placement.
Cudeco's shares suffered a 64 per cent slump in the four trading days from August 18 after a resource upgrade disappointed the market, wiping $420m from the company's market value.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
Shares have since slightly recovered from the $1.705 they hit on August 23 and yesterday rose 11c, or 5 per cent, to $2.19 on the news of the new investor and the raising. "Azure identified that Cudeco's share register is currently dominated by retail investors and that this has contributed in part to the recent volatility in the share price," Cudeco boss Wayne McCrae said.
"Addressing this imbalance by introducing a substantial institutional investor would assist in stabilising the company's share price."
Mr McRae said the completion of the placement would place the company in a strong financial position to continue its progress towards the development of its Rocklands copper project, where he was still targeting 2012 production. "This injection . . . will put Cudeco in a strong position to negotiate project finance upon completion of the definitive feasibility study," Mr McCrae said.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/m-investor-to-ease-cudeco-volatility/story-e6frg8zx-1225928615066