Uranium developer Neo Energy Metals has appointed investment and merchant banking boutique Bacchus Capital Advisers as its strategic and financial adviser.

Bacchus Capital specialises in strategic and corporate finance advice, mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings and natural resource sector ventures. The firm is headquartered in London, with representation in Asia, North America and Australia.

"The appointment of Bacchus Capital Advisers represents an important milestone for Neo Energy Metals as we focus on completing the recently announced uranium mine acquisitions in South Africa.

“Bacchus Capital's extensive experience in the global resources sector, their in-depth knowledge of the uranium sector and their extensive corporate finance and capital raising credentials, positions them as the ideal partner to assist us in achieving our strategic goals," Neo Energy Metals executive chairperson Jason Brewer said on January 16.

Bacchus Capital was established in 2017 and is led by Peter Bacchus, who was formerly the global head of mining and metals at Jefferies and Morgan Stanley.

The firm’s team has more than 100 years of combined investment banking and global mining sector experience and has led some of the mining industry's most transformational transactions, including the defence and sale of WMC in Australia (which included the Olympic Dam mine); the recapitalisation of Anglo American; the defence of Rio Tinto; the bond financing to build Fortescue in Western Australia; the pre-initial public offering (IPO) funding, IPO and merger of Glencore; and First Quantum's contested public takeover of Inmet.

In 2018, Bacchus Capital founded and established Aim-listed Yellow Cake – an investment vehicle operating in the uranium sector with a view to holding physical uranium for the long term and providing investors with pure exposure to the uranium sector.

Bacchus Capital completed an IPO for Yellow Cake in 2018 and has overseen and advised on multiple oversubscribed financings for it in the past five years for an aggregate amount of more than £500-million.

The firm further advised, structured and currently oversees the management of Yellow Cake's contract with one of the largest and lowest-cost producers of uranium globally, under which Yellow Cake has bought more than £500-million of physical uranium.

Yellow Cake is currently trading at a market capitalisation of about £1.2-billion, 600% above its initial valuation and its performance since listing positions it as one of the best performing metals and mining stocks on the LSE over the last five years.

Neo Metals said on January 16 that it was confident that the appointment of Bacchus Capital would be a crucial part of realising Neo Metals’ strategy to establish itself as South Africa's leading uranium mining company with the restart of mining at the Beatrix 4 shaft complex and the Beisa uranium/gold mine, located in the Witwatersrand basin in the Free State.

"We are pleased to work with Neo Energy Metals and provide the necessary strategic and corporate financial advice to them as they look to advance and fast-track their major uranium and gold assets into production at the Beatrix 4 and Beisa uranium/gold mine . . .”

"Through our successful involvement with Yellow Cake, we have a broad and extensive knowledge and understanding of the global uranium sector. This will greatly assist us as we leverage our expertise in investment banking and the global mining sector to meet Neo Energy Metals' immediate and long-term objectives,” Bacchus Capital MD and COO Richard Allan said.