11:48 AM EDT, 04/03/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Arianne Phosphate ( DRRSF ) said overnight Tuesday it elected to issue 6,08-million shares priced at $0.3229 per share, in lieu of cash, to settle its annual interest payment to Mercury Financing as at March 31.

Arianne said that under an agreement with Mercury, it has an option to pay the interest by way of cash or shares and such cash amount would have been equal to about $2.0 million.

The company added that it was able to negotiate a cap on the amount it can pay to repurchase an additional royalty that was put in place in March 2021 when its credit facility with Mercury was extended for five years and lowered the annual interest rate to 8%.

"Under the terms of the extension, an additional royalty was put in place that would escalate by $0.25/tonne annually while the credit facility was in place. This additional royalty could be bought back for $2.25 million for every year the credit facility was in place, however, Arianne has been able to cap the payment for the repurchase of this additional royalty to a maximum of $6.75 million, the company said.

Arianne is developing the Lac a Paul phosphate deposit in Quebec.

Arianne were last seen up C$0.01 to C$0.265 on the TSX Venture Exchange.

Price: 0.27, Change: +0.01, Percent Change: +3.92