Northern Iron non-executive directors Felix Tschudi and Ashwath Mehra have acquired 25 million and 4 million shares respectively through participation in the company's one-for-three non-renounceable entitlement offer of 45 cents per share, a 46.4 per cent discount to the closing price the day before the offer was announced. After spending $11.3 million on the share acquisition, Mr Tschudi offloaded 33 million shares through on-market trading at 55.5 cents each to raise $18.3 million. He retains a stake of 67 million shares in the Norwegian iron ore producer, currently worth almost $41 million. Mr Mehra spent $1.7 million on the share acquisition, increasing his stake in Northern Iron to 15.7 million shares currently worth $9.5 million. The company hopes to raise up to $55.5 million through the rights issue to strengthen its working capital position in light of declining iron ore prices and the costs of addressing unplanned maintenance outages at its Sydvaranger iron ore project. Northern Iron is also the subject of two competing takeover bids by Prominvest and Aditya Birla.
Beadell Resources managing director Peter Bowler has exercised 10.5 million options to acquire shares at a cost of 18.4 cents each, increasing his stake in the Australian and Brazilian gold explorer to 25 million shares. With Beadell shares currently trading at 94.5 cents each, his stake is valued at $23.6 million.
