Ucore Rare Metals completes $8.1 million rights offering

Ucore Rare Metals Inc. [UCU-TSXV; UURAF-OTCQX] said Friday October 25 that it has completed an $8.1 million rights offering that will result in the issuance of 80.9 million Uncore common shares at 10 cents each.

“The completion of the rights offering provides an important source of increased momentum at a crucial point in Ucore’s growth curve,” said the company’s President and CEO Jim McKenzie. “It represents one of the most significant single-round infusions of equity capital ever for Ucore. Perhaps the most remarkable is the level of participation from investors not typical to public financing,” he said.

“The substantial capital injection affords us the firepower to pursue even more significant infusions from the State of Alaska and U.S. Federal initiatives.”

Ucore is a development-phase company with a focus on rare metal resources, extraction and benefication technologies with near term potential for production growth and scalability. The company has a 100%-ownership stake in the Bokan-Dotson Ridge Rare Earth Project in Alaska.

However, it is aiming to transition to become a leading nanotechnology company that provides mineral separation products and services to the mining and mineral extraction industry. The vision includes the development of a strategic metals complex in Ketchikan, Alaska, and the development of the company’s rare earth minerals property located at Bokan Mountain in Alaska.

The company recently said it established a project-specific advisory team for the purpose of designing its heavy rare earth element solvent extraction plant and processing capabilities in southeast Alaska.

In February, 2019, Ucore said it had initiated the acquisition of privately-owned IBC Advanced Technologies Inc. on terms it said had previously been agreed to by the two companies as well as the majority shareholders of IBC.

“IBC has over 30 years of history, and extensive intellectual property in regards to the commercialization of supramolecular technology for the mining industry,” Ucore said in the February, 2019 press release. It said the acquisition of IBC would transition Ucore to active revenue bearing status, and progressively away from reliance on capital markets.

However, on February 21, 2019, Ucore said it was acknowledging a press release issued by IBC (dated February 20, 2019) detailing IBC’s decision to terminate the option to purchase agreement.

IBC has launched legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to test the enforceability of the option to purchase agreement. The case is still before the courts.

IBC Advanced Technologies is a privately held corporation, based in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was founded in 1988 by three professors, Reed Izatt, Jerald Bradshaw, and the late James Christensen. IBC is a developer and manufacturer of an extensive portfolio of Molecular Recognition Technology (MRT) products which are sold to metallurgical, advanced materials, chemical health and other industrial companies as well as to domestic and international governmental and academic organizations.

On Friday, Ucore shares were unchanged at 11 cents and are currently trading in a 52-week range of 8.5 cents and 33.5 cents.