Bellevue to raise $18.5m

Bellevue Gold is seeking to raise $18.5 million via an institutional share placement to fund ongoing exploration at its namesake project, and announced a director sell-down.

Shares under the placement will be issued at 57 cents each, representing an 8.8 per cent discount to Bellevue’s last closing share price.

Canaccord Genuity will fully underwrite the placement.

Additionally, non-executive chairman Ray Shorrocks, managing director Steve Parsons, and executive director Michael Naylor will sell up to a combined $6.8 million worth of shares.

This equates to around 19.8 per cent of the director’s aggregate holdings, and Bellevue said the sell-down represented the first time the directors had sold any shares in the company.

Bellevue said the funds would be used to advance an ongoing step-out resource growth exploration drilling and an infill drilling program, which would seek to convert existing inferred resources into measured and indicated resources.

Bellevue is currently in a trading halt at 62 cents each.