Niche Capital Emas Holdings Berhad announces that all resolutions tabled at its Extraordinary General Meeting were approved by shareholders. The exercises are set to help the group to strengthen its balance sheet, increase its flexibility to fund its mining operations, and provide a clearer pathway to long-term profitability.
Among the proposals approved, the RM70 million share capital reduction will allow it to extinguish accumulated losses and result in retained earnings. Giving a cleaner financial profile and creating a stronger platform for future dividend consideration when operations become profitable. The group said the bonus issue warrants will be issued at no cost to the entitled shareholders, allowing the opportunity to participate in additional ordinary shares of the Company. These warrants, once listed and tradable, offers potential capital gains and may provide additional working capital to NICE when exercised, without reliance on borrowings.
The private placement will see the issuance of approximately 296.7 million new shares and the price for the placement will be determined at a future date’s 5-day Volume Weighted Average Market Price. Of this, a significant amount will be channelled to increase our current Sokor processing facilities and balance into the development of the KK Hill project.
NICE will use the placement allocation for the mining business and be used primarily to increase the existing facilities in Sokor for higher production output and partly support the development of the newly secured KK Hill project, a 97.12-hectare (240-acre) site under the Sejana concession in Kelantan.
With this addition of resources, the Group has a total estimated gold resource amounting to 186,400 troy ounces of gold valued at approximately USD 671 million (at USD 3,600 per troy ounce), which puts the Group strategically aligned to become a major gold mining company in Malaysia. As the gold resources are distributed over multiple areas, the Group is actively engaging potential joint-venture partners for collaborations to carry out further exploration and mining activities. Currently, the Group is progressing with the regulatory processes, including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requirements, on the identified mining tenements e.g. KK Hill and Sokor Midland.
While commercial extraction will be gradual, Sokor and KK Hill are expected to be a cornerstone of NICE’s revenue growth. At the 1,830-hectare Sokor Gold Mine, NICE is improving operational efficiency at its maiden gold mine within the 547-hectare Sokor North tenement. Since November 2024, the heap leaching facility has been fully commissioned and achieved its intended recovery rate. In addition, a tank agitation leaching system has been introduced, which has shown encouraging recovery rates and enables processing of a wider range of ores. Further on-going expansions are under construction to support production.
On KK Hill, given the JORC report, the Management is planning to adopt Carbon-in-Leach (“CIL”) method with a capacity of up to 2,500 tonnes per day with an expectation of processing up to 70,000 tonnes of ores per month as the gold beneficiation methodology. In theory, with a typical recovery rate of 85% for the CIL method to process and produce an estimated 1,320 troy ounces per month.
Commenting on the developments, NICE said: “With these corporate exercises, we are not only strengthening the Group’s financial footing but also sharpening our focus on sustainable growth.
