IT TOOK six months of pounding the pavements for coal junior...

IT TOOK six months of pounding the pavements for coal junior Resource Generation (Resgen) to raise $62.6m in equity, only to find one-third of the promised amount has not materialised.

The announcement on Thursday that Singaporean investors Blumont had not stumped up the $22m due for 102-million Resgen shares is a problem for other shareholders, which include the Public Investment Corporation. If they don’t put in more money, or help Resgen to raise more, at the very least production and first cash generation will be delayed further. At worst, the project may not proceed at all.

Blumont did not say whether it would proceed with the subscription for Resgen shares later, but there have been strange developments on the Singapore stock exchange in recent months.

The announcement that US hedge fund Platinum Partners would put a total of $560m into three companies, of which $200m would go to Blumont, pushed up the share prices of those companies. This was followed by a sudden crash in those shares on October 4, and the deals have now fallen through.