Our roundup of Canadian small-caps of between $100-million and $2.5-billion in market capitalization making news and on the move today.
A&W Revenue Royalties Income Fund (AW.UN-T) announced a special cash distribution. The company behind A&W restaurants declared a cash distribution of 15.5 per trust unit for November and a special cash distribution of 5 cents per trust unit.
The distributions will be paid to unitholders of record at the close of business on Dec. 15 and payable on Dec. 31.
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Nomad Royalty Company Ltd. (NSR-T) announced a gold purchase agreement with Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd., which is 64-per-cent owned by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and is the owner of the tier-one Platreef palladium-rhodium-platinum-nickel-copper-gold project located in Limpopo, South Africa.
Nomad said it will provide US$75-million in gold stream funding to Ivanplats as part of a US$200-million gold stream co-investment with Orion Mine Finance.
Orion will also separately provide US$100-million under a palladium and platinum stream for total stream funding of US$300-million to Ivanplats to fund a large portion of the phase 1 capital costs for Platreef, with initial production scheduled in 2024.
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Converge Technology Solutions Corp. (CTS-T) announced it has gained approval to increase its asset-based lending credit facility from $190-million to $300-million in an agreement with a syndicate of banks led by CIBC. Converge also said it will also add J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. to the company’s syndicate of banks.
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Magnet Forensics Inc. (MAGT-T), which makes digital investigation software, announced a $74.4-million bought-deal secondary offering.
It said today that certain shareholders, including founder and president Jad Saliba and CEO Adam Belsher, alongside other management team members and In-Q-Tel, Inc. have a financing agreement with an underwriting syndicate led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. and BMO Capital Markets. They will purchase about 2.5 million subordinate voting shares at a price of $30.30 per share.
Mr. Saliba and Mr. Belsher will sell their respective portions of the offered shares, or 900,000 subordinate voting shares each, through holding companies controlled by them. In-Q-Tel, Inc., a not-for-profit strategic investor, will be selling all 431,814 subordinate voting shares held by it and will not hold any shares following the closing of the offering, the company stated. It said the remaining shares will be sold by certain other members of management through holding companies controlled by them.
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Dirtt Environmental Solutions Ltd. (DRT-T) has called an annual and special meeting of shareholders for April 26, 2022, in response to a recent requisition made by activist investor 22NW Fund, LP. The meeting will deal both with normal course matters and matters related to the requisition, the company stated.
It also said it has approved the adoption of a shareholder rights plan, effective Dec. 7. “to help ensure that all shareholders of the company are treated fairly and equally in connection with any unsolicited take-over bid or other acquisition of control of Dirtt (including by way of a “creeping” take-over bid).”
It said the plan is consistent with the shareholder rights plan the company had in place from 2014 to 2020 and is similar to shareholder rights plans adopted by other Canadian public companies.
“The rights plan is not being adopted in response to any specific proposal to acquire control of the company, and the board is not aware of any pending or threatened take-over bid for the company,” the company stated.
However, it noted that 22NW Fund, LP has announced that it intends to seek to replace six members of the board. Dirtt said the rights plan allows 22NW to proceed with their nominations and solicit proxies at the meeting in April.
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Imperial Metals Corp. (III-T) said it has acquired four mineral claims totalling 6,834.47 hectares from Freeport-McMoRan Mineral Properties Canada Inc. for the consideration of claim assessment work expenditures and a 0.5-per-cent net smelter return royalty. The company said the acquired claims are contiguous with its Sustut property in B.C., which is held by subsidiary Selkirk Metals
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