Greenland gold miner AEX Gold eyes London listing

AEX Gold, a gold exploration and mining company focused on Greenland, said on Tuesday it plans an initial public offering (IPO) in London next month.

AEX said it would seek admission to the London Stock Exchange’s small company sub-market, AIM, and conduct a placement of common shares to raise 45 million pounds ($55.3 million).

The company said it aimed to “leverage its first mover advantage in Greenland, underpinned by the previously producing Nalunaq asset, to build a full-cycle gold mining company in Greenland”.

The Nalunaq mine, which AEX plans to restart, produced around 350,000 ounces of gold between 2004 and 2009, and has an inferred resource of 250,970 ounces of gold, it added.

Greenland made headlines last year when U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of buying the resource-rich autonomous Danish territory. Denmark’s dismissal of the idea caused Trump to cancel a planned visit to Copenhagen.

But the U.S. military then conducted an aerial survey of Greenland to assess the vast arctic island’s mineral potential, as part of an agreement between the two governments.

AEX Gold’s listing will come after IPO volumes in Europe halved in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year.

Bankers say only select companies with strong, counter-cyclical stories can get deals away in what remains a highly volatile marketplace.

(By Helen Reid and Abhinav Ramnarayan; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)