Aston Bay and Core Gold have topped up their treasuries

Aston Bay Holdings (BAY.V) has been active to fill up its treasury in anticipation of the 2018 exploration season. The company raised a total of C$4.47M (C$0.47M more than announced) in a placement which took approximately 3.5 months to close. The placement was announced in December of last year, and the final tranche enjoyed a lot of shareholder interest given the recent strong performance of the Aston Bay share price. On top of the previously announced placement, Aston Bay has applied to the Exchange to complete an additional offering of C$2M in flow through shares.

Should the Exchange approve this second deal, the funds will probably immediately be used on the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc projects and we will catch up with CEO Thomas Ullrich to get a better understanding of the exploration plans for this year.

Core Gold (CGLD.V) has also been raising money, and the company closed a first tranche of a C$4.25M private placement (priced at C$0.30 per unit with each unit consisting of one share and half a warrant, valid for two years with an exercise price of C$0.45 per share). A first tranche of C$1.62M has already been closed, and we expect Core to close additional tranches very soon. Core Gold has now also closed a US$1.6M short term loan with Credipresto, which will provide additional liquidity and flexibility.

Core picked our interest as the company is now headed by Keith Piggott, whom we know from his days at Goldgroup Mining (GGA.TO). Piggott and his team took the reins of Dynasty Metals and Mining (DMM.TO) and really turned the company with its Ecuadorian asset base around: labourers got paid again, the mining and milling operations became more efficient and the new line of credit from Credipresto will allow the company to increase the throughput at the mill towards the nameplate capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day. This will increase Core Gold's free cash flows which will subsequently be used to reduce its net debt and to fund the exploration activities on the gold projects as well as the exciting Copper Duke copper project in Ecuador.