Harneys advises Equatorial Palm Oil plc (renamed Capital Metals plc) on its proposed acquisition under AIM Rule 14 of Capital Metals Limited

Harneys acted as BVI counsel to Equatorial Palm Oil plc (EPO), renamed as Capital Metals plc (AIM: CMET) on its £15.84 million acquisition of Capital Metals Limited (CML) by way of a reverse takeover under AIM Rule 14. The acquisition was financed through a combination of an oversubscribed placing, management subscriptions and the issue by EPO of up to 132,000,000 new ordinary shares as consideration to the CML shareholders for all the issued shares in CML. The acquisition was approved by the EPO shareholders on 11 January 2020.

CML was incorporated in 2015 to acquire licenses prospective for mineral sands in Sri Lanka (the Project). The Project has an established JORC Resource of 17.2Mt, of which 84 per cent is in the Measured and Indicated categories, with an average grade of 17.6 per cent Total Heavy Minerals (THM), making it one of the highest-grade deposits in the global peer group. Less than 5 per cent of the Project area has been drilled to date and the JORC Resource is from surface to a depth of 3m. Exploration work has shown continuation beyond 3m and also returned grades in excess of 26 per cent THM.

The relevant CML RNS is available here.

Capital Metals new website is here.

The Harneys team was led by Partner, Rachel Graham with assistance from Associate, Adam Legge. Rachel commented: “We wish to congratulate the Capital Metals team and Hill Dickinson our instructing onshore counsel on admission to AIM and wish them every success with their new project.”

Harneys corporate team regularly advises on complex cross-border transactions including IPOs and disposals involving British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Cyprus corporate vehicles. The firm’s significant track record includes advising on high profile private equity transactions, landmark IPOs, as well as public and private M&A and joint ventures.