London-listed resources group Tharisa says its Karo Platinum (Karo) project in Zimbabwe will play a crucial role in its Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) programme, with JP Morgan appointed as the depositary bank.
The ADR programme will enable US-based investors to gain exposure to Tharisa through dollar-denominated ADRs trading in the US over-the-counter (OTC) market.
Each Tharisa ADR will represent ten ordinary shares of the company, with the underlying ordinary shares to continue trading on the JSE and the LSE.
Tharisa states that the platinum group metals (PGMs) it is planning to produce at Karo, still under development, and the chrome it produces at its Tharisa mine in South Africa are recognised as critical minerals in the US and other major economies and, as such, attract increasing attention from investors seeking exposure to the energy transition, clean air technologies and future facing technologies including AI.
“The establishment of our ADR programme marks a meaningful step in broadening Tharisa’s global investor reach. The US is an attractive jurisdiction and we are seeing significant interest in critical and strategic minerals, the very commodities at the heart of our business,” Tharisa chief executive Phoevos Pouroulis said.
“All of the commodities we mine fall into both categories, and this programme gives US investors a simple, accessible and familiar mechanism through which to access our equity story. It is consistent with our strategy of enhancing optionality, improving liquidity and reaching the widest possible pool of institutional and retail investors who recognise the value of what we are building at Tharisa,” he said.
Tharisa recently reached an agreement with the Zimbabwe government on fiscal regulations for the $545m Karo project, a critical step ahead of concluding its funding.
“Agreement has been reached with the Government on the substantive fiscal arrangements, and these are being finalised through the respective ministries,” Pouroulis said.
Tharisa projects its flagship Karo to become a generational, Tier-1 PGM asset that will double the company’s total PGMs output once fully operational.