San Leon Energy in £60m fundraising
AIM-listed oil and gas exploration company San Leon Energy yesterday announced it has raised £59.6m through a new share placement.
The firm says it will use the proceeds of the placing to fund an extensive seismic and drilling programme over the next 18 months, including the drilling of up to 17 wells.
The funds will also be used to repay the company’s £2.5m convertible debt pile.
Site development will take place on its gas field in Poland, where it shares a field in the Baltic Basin with Talisman Energy.
It also plans to drill two exploration wells in on-shore Morocco, where it will target
conventional oil and gas plays.
Executive chairman Oisín Fanning said: “We are delighted with the high demand for this placing which shows strong support from both existing shareholders and new institutional investors in Europe and North America.
“Over the last two years the company has built a highly attractive portfolio of assets across a number of exciting hydrocarbon regions. Our focus now turns to commercialising and developing these assets.”
Fanning was formerly chief executive of stricken Irish firm Smart Telecom.
He was forced to sell the firm for just a euro and its debt to Brendan Murtagh, Smart’s principal shareholder.
Earlier this year San Leon Enery bought Island Oil & Gas in a £13.7m deal in order to grow its exploration and development business.
Shareholders received one new San Leon share for every 2.3 Island shares they held.
NICK TULLOCH
ARBUTHNOT
NICK Tulloch will head up the team of Nomads at Arbuthnot. He joined the firm as head of corporate finance in 2009. He was previously a managing director at Altium where he worked on financial advisory and corporate broking transactions for small- and mid-cap companies. He began his investment banking career at Schroders and Cazenove. Also on the team for Arbuthnot is Ben Wells.
Macquarie Capital is acting as sole book runner and co-lead manager for the fundraising, with John Dwyer leading the team. Dwyer joined Macquarie in 2009 as managing director in its Equity Capital Markets division.
DAVID PORTER
FOX-DAVIES CAPITAL
He was previously executive director in Goldman Sachs’ EMEA Equity Capital Markets team. He has experience in regions including Russia, Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Also on the Macquarie team are Paul Connolly and Ben Colegrave.
Fox-Davies Capital is also acting as co-lead manager, with Phil Davies and David Porter working on the account. Davies recently joined Fox-Davies as head of corporate finance, moving from Charles Stanely Securities where he worked for seven years, having previously worked at Seymour Pierce.