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Dear Shareholder
The enclosed documents are important and I urge you to
give them your full consideration.
Invitation to Participate in the PlatSearch Share
Purchase Plan
I am pleased to advise that your Board of Directors has
decided to make an issue under its Share Purchase Plan (SPP). The SPP
entitles shareholders in the Company, irrespective of the size of their
shareholding, to purchase up to $5,000 worth of shares in PlatSearch free of
brokerage. An Application Form is also enclosed, should you wish to
participate. If fully subscribed, the Offer under the SPP will raise
$400,000 through the issue of 3,333,333 shares, as the Board has decided to
limit the amount of the issue to $400,000.
The right to participate in this initial offer under the
SPP is available exclusively to persons who are registered as holders of
fully paid ordinary shares in PlatSearch NL at 5:00pm on the record date of
25 January 2007 and whose registered address is in Australia, New Zealand
and any other jurisdiction in which it is lawful for the Company to offer
shares under the SPP.
The purchase price of the new shares to be offered under
the SPP has been set at 12 cents. This represents a price less than the last
closing sale price prior to the date of this letter of 12.5 cents per share.
It is a 7.6% discount to the weighted average market price of the ordinary
shares sold during the course of trading on the Australian Stock Exchange
for the five trading days immediately preceding this announcement. It is a
10% discount to the weighted average market price of the ordinary shares
sold during the course of trading on the Australian Stock Exchange for the
three trading months immediately preceding this announcement. The issue
price compares with the 52 week high of 20 cents and 52 week low of 6 cents.
From a fundraising viewpoint, placements to large
investors can be completed quickly and at a low cost. However, we are
conscious that smaller shareholders do not get the opportunity to subscribe
equity at the discounted placement price. It is for this reason that we make
this offer to follow the recently completed placement at 12 cents, which
raised $600,000.
Current and Forthcoming Company Activities
The SPP will afford shareholders the opportunity to
acquire additional shares during an active period for the Company with
drilling programmes at a number of its emerging New South Wales and South
Australian gold and base-metals projects. These programmes are set out in
the attached Exploration Update. Success for the Company in any one of these
projects could see a positive re-rating of the Company’s share price.
Whilst my fellow Directors and I have confidence in the
future of the Company, it would be remiss of me if I did not also draw your
attention to the fact that owning shares in an exploration company, like
PlatSearch, is considered a speculative form of investment and that the
future price of the Company’s shares can rise or fall depending on
exploration success and fluctuations on the stock market generally.
Shareholders should be aware that there is a risk that the market price of
the shares may change between the date of this offer and the date when the
new shares are issued to you under the SPP. The value of the shares you
receive may rise or fall accordingly.
Additional information and key dates
If you would like to participate in the SPP, please
return your completed application form, together with your cheque
representing the purchase price by the 6 March 2007.
Please note that the maximum investment per shareholder
is $5,000 (representing 41,667 shares at a purchase price of 12 cents per
share). The minimum number that can be applied for is 4,167 shares at a
total cost of $500. Shareholders may also apply for any number of shares
between the maximum and the minimum. Shares allotted under the SPP will be
issued no later than 10 March 2007.
Applications will be considered on a first come first
served basis. If applications in excess of 3,333,333 shares in total are
received, then these applications will be allotted on a first come, first
served basis. All extra applications will be returned, so that the maximum
allowed number of shares are issued (i.e. 3,333,333 shares). A full copy of
the Terms of the PlatSearch NL Shareholder Share Purchase Plan is available
on request from the Company. If you have any questions on the SPP, please
call the Company’s office on (02) 9906 5220 during business hours.
The rights attaching to the SPP Shares are identical in
all respects to existing fully paid ordinary shares in the capital of the
Company.
If fully subscribed, the Offer under the SPP could raise
$400,000. The intended use of the funds raised, pursuant to the issue of the
SPP Shares, is to further advance the Company’s exploration activities by
providing additional working capital to support the programmes set out in
the attached Summary of Exploration Highlights.
Yours sincerely
PlatSearch NL
Raymond J Soper
Chairman
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EXPLORATION UPDATE
February 2007
Dear Shareholder
To assist in your evaluation of the accompanying
Shareholder Purchase Plan, PlatSearch is pleased to provide the following
update.
The level of activity on the PlatSearch portfolio will be
very high during 2007. Following a period of
intensive joint venture negotiations, PlatSearch has now secured funding for
exploration work on 24 of its 39 tenements in NSW, SA and QLD.
Joint venturers include Teck Cominco,
Newcrest Mining, CBH Resources, Red Metal, Crossland Uranium Mines, Western
Plains Resources, Perilya Mining, Bondi Mining, WCP Resources, Marathon
Resources and Tri Origin. In accordance with
joint venture agreements that provide favourable terms for PlatSearch, these
parties are funding and conducting substantial work, including drilling in
most projects, for copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, nickel and uranium.
In some cases, PlatSearch personnel are
providing technical assistance to joint venture operations.
While the expenditure requirements for most of our
projects are met by joint venturers, PlatSearch has costs in other areas
necessitating contributions from its shareholders from time to time:
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Management of the commercial and technical aspects of
joint ventures from PlatSearch’s point of view, to ensure that
exploration work is conducted in your Company’s best interests, is an
ongoing and demanding requirement for the small PlatSearch team. The
team has been strengthened recently by the appointment in January 2007
of geologist Peter Buckley as Exploration Manager.
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There are 15 tenements that are not farmed out and
are being funded solely by PlatSearch on programmes designed to add
value by identifying drill targets and in some cases negotiating joint
ventures.
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Project generation is a priority for PlatSearch to
ensure that we maintain a constant stream of new projects and drill
targets. This involves considerable research, field investigations and
the acquisition of large sets of geophysical and geological data. For
precious and base metals in Eastern Australia, this work is funded
through share issues to our strategic alliance partner Minotaur
Exploration. However project generation in other states and for other
commodities is a direct PlatSearch cost.
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Although PlatSearch keeps its management and overhead
expenditure very low by industry standards this is an ongoing cost that
has to be met.
Particular developments that shareholders should be aware
of are summarised overleaf in the "Highlights" section. Further information
is available on the Company’s website www.platsearch.com.au.
Highlights
were signed
during the last few months bringing the total number of active joint
ventures to 14. The new joint ventures are:
with
Crosslands Uranium Mines. Crossland will undertake
further geochemical sampling followed by RAB drilling with
particular attention on the KR4 prospect where uranium occurs as
davidite in veins over a 1.5 kilometres strike length.
Mundi Plains/Junction Dam, NSW/SA with
Teck Cominco. A programme of deep drilling seeking Broken
Hill style zinc-lead-silver has commenced on two targets.
Cymbric Vale, NSW with Bondi
Mining. Field work to investigate nickel and copper prospects
has commenced. Bondi will complete a RAB drilling programme before
May 2007.
Dunmore/Tomingley, NSW with Bondi
Mining. A contractor has been engaged to fly detailed
aeromagnetic surveys over both tenements in March 2007. RAB drilling
seeking porphyry copper-gold and sheeted quartz vein associated gold
targets will follow.
Lilleyvale, QLD with WCP Resources.
WCP is committed to drill two deep rotary/core holes, seeking
IOCG style copper-gold mineralisation and commencing as soon as a
drill is available and weather permits.
Mirikata, SA with Newcrest Operations
. Newcrest will complete before 30 June 2007 a $100,000 programme
including drilling to test magnetic/gravity targets located
approximately 25 kilometres west of Oxiana’s Prominent Hill project
in the Gawler Craton.
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Western Plains Resources (WPG) , in which
PlatSearch has a 10% shareholding and 4.85 million options, has
commenced a bankable feasibility study for the Peculiar Knob DSO iron
ore deposit in South Australia. A 7,900 metre drilling programme has
commenced to enable an upgrade of the status of the resource to the
Measured and Indicated categories and provide essential data for a
detailed mine design. At Hawks Nest a 17 hole RC percussion drill
programme for an estimated 2,300 metres will test several promising
geophysical targets for the presence of new DSO haematite and/or high
grade magnetite deposits within the Hawks Nest BIF terrain.
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At the Euriowie Project, Broken Hill, NSW,
joint venturer WPG is completing a programme of eight RC percussion
holes and one core hole on the Son of Man, B40 and Yalcowinna Creek
prospects. Encouraging copper mineralisation has been intersected in two
holes at Yalcowinna Creek.
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An application for PACE funding of $75,000 for
drilling at Wynbring Project, SA, has been successful.
Negotiations regarding a joint venture to fund ongoing work are at an
advanced stage.
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PlatSearch has built a strong tenement position in
the Thomson Fold Belt, NSW with a further four tenement
applications. A recent intersection of encouraging base and precious
metals by Compass Resources at their nearby Cuttaburra prospect has
highlighted the potential of this region. The Compass discovery hole
targeted a discrete magnetic anomaly in a setting interpreted to
represent a look-alike to the Siluro-Devonian Cobar Basin, the province
of several important base metals and precious metals deposits. In
PlatSearch’s 1,900 square kilometre tenement package, the Company has
identified at least 30 magnetic anomaly targets that justify drill
testing for similar style mineralisation. Information packages on these
tenements are being reviewed currently by Minotaur Exploration regarding
their possible joint venture participation.
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Joint venturer Red Metal was awarded a PACE grant for
a deep drill hole to test one of several localised gravity anomaly
targets for IOCG copper-gold-uranium in the eastern part of the
Callabonna Project tenement in the Curnamona Craton, SA.
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In the Curnamona Craton, Red Metal is preparing to
complete core drilling in basement rocks at the Dolores East prospect in
the Quinyambie Project. A previous core hole discovered a
large, haematite altered, brecciated, volcanic intrusive body with
strongly anomalous copper.
PlatSearch NL
Bob Richardson
Managing Director
The information on mineralisation
contained in this announcement accurately reflects information compiled by R
L Richardson, BSc, BE (Hons), MAusIMM, MASEG, Managing Director and a
part-time employee of PlatSearch NL a Competent Person (as defined by the
Australasian Code for Reporting of Identified Mineral Resources and Ore
Reserves), who has relevant experience in relation to such mineralisation
and has consented to the inclusion of such information in this announcement. |