Battle-scarred Pan Pacific Aggregates (PPA) has raised £540,000 and is scouting for distressed acquisitions. The company is also expecting a second tranche of funding.

Battle-scarred Pan Pacific Aggregates (PPA) has raised £540,000 and is scouting for distressed acquisitions. The company is also expecting a second tranche of funding.

Broker VSA Capital, whose boss William Voaden also heads British Columbia-based PPA, secured the first tranche at a barely visible 0.15p and was offered the second by retail brokers speculating that the fortunes of the bombed-out company were now on the turn. VSA says £300,000 is in the bag at 0.225p and sounds confident of taking that to £500,000.

Voaden argues this financing leaves only one hurdle before the company can pursue its ambitions to quarry granite at Pumptown in the locality. That is a public meeting on 25 August at the town of Abbotsford, within whose jurisdiction Pumptown lies and where Voaden argues the local mayor’s support should win the day for PPA.

Floated on AIM at 80p four years ago, PPA shares collapsed from 91p in 2006 to 0.25p more recently after a remorseless series of mishaps. First, resistance from indigenous people put paid to the company’s original project in the region’s Schelt Peninsula and then Pumptown hit technical and infrastructure snags, political opposition and obstruction from its local partner.

The latest funding should allow PPA, which lost £3.3 million last year and recently reached a creditors’ agreement at 9 cents in the dollar, to make start with Pumptown and exploit a regional shortage of aggregate, provided the Abbotsford meeting goes well. Voaden says the company is also talking to liquidators about possibly taking over two over-borrowed local sand and gravel concerns, a deal which would require further funding from the market.

At the height of the company’s crisis, analysts argued it was either worth nothing or significantly more than its current value. That remains the case and the odds have improved.