COCKATOO COAL will need to raise fresh equity by the end of the year to develop its mining projects after the South Korean shareholder SK Networks surprised the market by withdrawing from a planned $313 million placement.
The placement would have lifted SK's stake in Cockatoo from 5.5 per cent to 40 per cent but, at 53.5¢ a share, was priced at a steep premium to the market. Cockatoo shares dropped 2.5¢, or 7.25 per cent, to 34¢ yesterday, compounding heavy falls since mid-February.
Cockatoo is expanding its producing Baralaba mine in the Bowen Basin, and has other Surat Basin development projects to fund, including Woori. Cockatoo sold 49 per cent of Woori to a subsidiary of Japan's Mitsui Coal last month for $37.3 million.
Asian utilities and steel mills own 32 per cent of Cockatoo.
The Wilson HTM analyst Andrew Pedler said these shareholders were ''genuinely committed'' to Cockatoo and its projects and the company had a ''reasonable prospect'' of raising equity because it was in a better position than other emerging coal producers without cash flow.
''Yes it's inconvenient, but I do not believe it's fatal to Cockatoo in any way, shape or form,'' he said.
