Canada’s Mercom Oil Sands set for £32m float on London’s Aim
CANADIAN oil exploration company Mercom Oil Sands said it has raised £3.35m through the issue of new shares ahead of its flotation on the Alternative Investment Market tomorrow.
The company, which was founded earlier this year to buy and develop oil sands properties in Canada, said it has sold 33.5m shares at a price of 10p, valuing the company at around £32m.
Chief executive Kim Berknov, said Mercom will be “the only pure play Canadian oil sands business listed on Aim” and would “enable investors to access an increasingly attractive and growing but not particularly well known sector of the oil and gas market”.
Canada holds the world’s third-largest reserves of oil. Most of those are oil sands – a tar-like mix of bitumen and quartz sand—located in the western Canadian province of Alberta.
Mercom’s decision to float follows the group’s acquisition of interests in four oil sand leases in the Chard field in Alberta from Nordic Petroleum in February.
It will become the latest oil and gas company to list on Aim, despite tough market conditions that have all but frozen the main market.
ADVISERS LIBERTAS CAPITAL
TIM COFMAN
LIBERTAS CAPITAL
Libertas Capital acted as the nominated adviser and broker to Mercom, with director Tim Cofman leading the team. Cofman, who has more than 35 years of corporate finance experience behind him, joined Libertas a year and a half ago from WH Ireland, where he was responsible for the Midlands-based corporate finance team. He has also worked as a director at broker Numis, Deloitte & Touche and the merchant bank Henry Ansbacher. Last year he brought Ireland-based minerals explorer Great Western Mining to market in a £1m fundraising. Commenting on Mercom’s fundraising Cofman said: “There has been a good appetite in terms of the current climate. It is the first oil sands pureplay in the London market.”