NAT le Roux has upped his stake in Scotgold Resources to more than 40 per cent after the mining company's biggest investor underwrote its latest rights issue.
Mr le Roux, who made his fortune at spread-betting firm IG Group, has lifted his shareholding to 40.2 per cent from 15.4 per cent after he and fellow investor Alexander Littlejohn agreed to make up the shortfall in the share offer.
Mr Littlejohn's stake in Scotgold, which aims to mine for gold and silver at Tyndrum, Argyll, increased to 8.5 per cent from 0.5 per cent.
However, despite now holding more than 30 per cent, the trigger point which can compel investors to launch a full takeover, a forced takeover by Mr le Roux is not on the cards.
This was confirmed by new chief executive Richard Gray, who replaced Chris Sangster in the role last month. Mr Gray said: "We all understand it's a difficult time for investors.
"This is the way we were planning to move the com-pany forward, and with the support of Mr le Roux it has enabled us to do this.
"We were well aware that a couple of the shareholders have been very good to us over a long period of time, and we have had a couple of rights issues. We understood that some people would not have been in a position to follow those rights.
"Now with this underwriting we will be well placed going forward."
Scotgold raised A$1.2 million after receiving applications for 34 per cent of the 568,529,569 new shares on offer.
The shares were offered at a price of 0.6 cents or 0.33p from eligible shareholders.
Asked whether the com-pany was close to commencing mining operations in Argyll, Mr Gray said the new executive team was still a case of "watch this space".
But he said "things are on track" thanks to the backing of Mr le Roux. Mr Gray said: "Our intention is to repay some or all of the RMB [Australia Holdings] loan, which would obviously put us in a stronger position going forward."
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