IRC Limited: Partial Subscription by General Nice

RELEASED IN ERROR

The announcement released on 30 April 2014 at 1619 under RNS No 9729F was released in error and should be disregarded.

30 April 2014

IRC Limited: Partial Subscription by General Nice and General Nice Further Subscription Update

Further to the Circular issued by Petropavlovsk PLC ("Petropavlovsk" or the "Company") on 18 February 2013 and previous announcements by IRC Limited ("IRC") and the Company, Petropavlovsk is pleased to confirm that IRC has today announced that it has received subscription monies of HK$155,100,000 (approximately US$20 million) from General Nice Development Limited ("General Nice") and, accordingly, has allotted and issued 165,000,000 new shares of IRC ("Shares")(the ''Partial Further Subscription Shares'') to General Nice as a further partial subscription (the ''Partial Further Subscription'') of General Nice's total subscription commitment under the General Nice Subscription Agreement.

Accordingly, General Nice has already invested over 80% of its total commitments. Together with the 1,200,876,000 Shares already held by General Nice, as at the date of this announcement, General Nice holds, in aggregate, 1,365,876,000 Shares which represent approximately 28.10% of the total issued share capital of IRC as enlarged by the Partial Further Subscription.

Further to discussions between IRC and General Nice and Mr Cai Sui Xin (the controlling shareholder and Chairman of General Nice), IRC has been assured by General Nice that it will be able to complete the remainder of its subscription commitment by payment to IRC of the remaining amount of HK$296,344,400 on or before 25 June 2014.

Following the subscription of new shares in IRC by General Nice, the Company's shareholding in IRC reduced from 46.98% to 45.39%.

Commenting on the release, Peter Hambro, Chairman, said:

"I am very grateful to General Nice and to its chairman, Mr Cai Sui Xin for the great efforts under difficult conditions that have been made in order to complete this additional subscription for new shares in IRC. We look forward to a long and prosperous cooperation with our Chinese co-shareholders.

Further details may be found in the announcement of IRC Limited, available on its website www.ircgroup.com.hk 

Capitalised terms used in this announcement shall have the same meanings as defined in the Circular issued by the Company on 18 February 2013, unless otherwise stated.

IRC is a producer and developer of industrial commodities and was the Group's former Non-Precious Metals Division, prior to its listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code 1029).

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