The company appointed BMO Capital Markets and JP Morgan as lead joint bookrunners for a share placement to raise $80 million from “strategic” and institutional investors in North America and Europe.

A share placement is set to raise $44 million before costs, through the issue of 55 million ordinary Coalspur shares at 80c each.

An additional $36 million before costs will be raised through a private placement of convertible notes which can be converted into 45 million ordinary shares at 80c each.

Coalspur said the largest participant will be Highland Park Group.

Shareholder approval is required and Coalspur plans to announce more details about the transaction for new coal leases shortly.

The settlement of the placements are expected to occur by mid-October.

Coalspur managing director Gene Wusaty said the capital raising will not only secure the acquisition of new coal leases, but will also put the company in a position to “rapidly develop the Vista coal project”

The company’s Vista coal project already holds more than 905 million tonnes of resources with 812.6Mt in either the measured or indicated category.

Before acquiring additional leases over the past few months, the project was previously called the Hinton project.

The open cut Hinton project was aiming for 7.4 million tonnes per annum of thermal coal production to export 4Mt of saleable coal over a mine life of 14 years.

Coalspur shares are up 5.5c to 98c this morning.