Halo Minerals (AIM:HALO) reported a pre-tax loss of £2.9 million for the six months to 30 June, covering the period in which it completed its AIM admission and raised £4 million gross.
The copper development company, focused on extracting critical minerals from legacy mining waste, said the loss included £2.4 million in administrative costs, £0.4 million in finance costs and £0.1 million in foreign exchange losses.
Stripped of non-cash items, including £0.5 million of share-based payments and a further £0.5 million from directors and suppliers taking IPO fees in shares, admin costs reduce to approximately £1.4 million on a cash basis, of which around £0.5 million relates directly to the listing and is non-recurring.
The company's flagship Playa Verde copper and gold tailings project in Chile is underpinned by a JORC resource of 53 million tonnes at 0.24% copper, including ore reserves of 32.2 million tonnes at 0.25% copper.
Halo is also assessing an offshore extension within the licence area that it estimates could hold approximately 100 million tonnes of copper-bearing tailings, subject to further licence applications.
"Playa Verde is a low-risk project with very robust economics", said chief executive Andrew Dennan, adding that the company is "building a portfolio of similar assets".
The board said the second half will focus on completing optimisation and engineering studies, advancing permitting, and progressing construction financing, with the company now debt-free following the IPO.
News Intelligence what this means for the company
Halo Minerals reported a £2.9 million pre-tax loss for H1 2024, but the loss was largely non-cash; on a cash basis, stripping out £0.5 million in share-based payments and £0.5 million in IPO fees paid in shares, administrative costs fell to £1.4 million, with roughly £0.5 million of that one-off listing costs. The company raised £4 million gross at AIM admission and is now debt-free, positioning itself to advance Playa Verde—a 32.2 million tonne copper ore reserve project in Chile—toward a final investment decision in H2, while also assessing an offshore extension estimated at ~100 million tonnes of tailings.
The loss is immaterial on a cash basis and the IPO has left Halo with a clean balance sheet to fund development. The key variable remains execution on permitting and construction financing for Playa Verde; the company has cleared a major regulatory hurdle (environmental approval upheld in July 2026), but FID timing and capital requirements will determine whether the project's stated 'robust economics' translate to shareholder value.
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