As recently announced in a Corporate Finance Bulletin and Notice to Issuers (the "Bulletin"), the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") has extended until April 30, 2013 three temporary measures (the "Relief Measures") designed to provide relief to issuers from certain pricing requirements relating to private placement financings. The Relief Measures, originally implemented in August 2012, are as follows:
1) Allowing a share/unit offering with an offering price below $0.05.
2) Allowing a debenture offering with a debenture conversion price below $0.10.
3) Allowing offerings involving a warrant with an exercise price below $0.10.
In order to rely on the Relief Measures, an issuer must demonstrate that it is subject to immediate or imminent financial hardship and that it does not have the time or resources to undertake a share consolidation before closing the financing. In addition, the principal use of proceeds of the financing must be to maintain or preserve the existing business of the issuer and none of the proceeds may be used to compensate or satisfy obligations to related parties of the issuer.
The Bulletin includes an amendment to the originally-implemented Relief Measures by introducing the concept of an "Excluded Amount" with respect to financings with a share/unit offering price below $0.05 or a debenture conversion price below $0.10. The amended Relief Measures provide that up to $50,000 of the gross proceeds raised in a financing in reliance on the Relief Measures can be used for general working capital purposes and is not subject to the "Maintain/Preserve Existing Business" and "No Payments to Related Parties" conditions noted above.
Specifics of the requirements and conditions associated with use of the Relief Measures are detailed in the Bulletin.
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