Note 9 - Equity Transactions |
9 Months Ended |
|---|---|
Aug. 31, 2025 | |
| Notes to Financial Statements | |
| Equity [Text Block] |
NOTE 9 – EQUITY TRANSACTIONS
Public Equity Offering and Private Placement Offering
On May 9, 2025, the Company closed a public equity offering of 47,850,000 shares of NOVAGOLD at a price of $3.75 per share. As part of the public equity offering, the Company granted the underwriters a 30-day overallotment option to purchase up to an additional 7,177,500 common shares at a price of $3.75 per share less underwriting discounts and commissions. Concurrent with the public offering, the Company also closed a private placement for 17,173,853 common shares of NOVAGOLD at a price of $3.75 per share on May 9, 2025. On June 5, 2025, the Company issued an additional 7,177,500 common shares of NOVAGOLD pursuant to the exercise in full of the overallotment option by the underwriters. The public equity offering and concurrent private placement offering are referred to herein as the “May 2025 Offering”.
On closing of the May 2025 Offering, the Company received aggregate gross proceeds of $243,839 before deducting fees and other offering expenses totaling approximately $9,734. On closing of the overallotment option exercise, the Company received additional aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $26,915 before deducting fees and other offering expenses totaling approximately $1,434.
Warrants
Concurrent with the Donlin Gold Transaction announced on April 22, 2025, the Company entered into a backstop commitment agreement with certain institutional investors, pursuant to which the investors committed to purchase up to $170,000 of the Company’s common shares to partially fund the $200,000 payment to the Barrick Parties under the Donlin Gold Transaction discussed in Note 5. As consideration for providing this commitment, and independent of whether the backstop was ultimately exercised, the Company issued 25,500,000 warrants to the investors enabling them to purchase common shares of NOVAGOLD for an exercise price of $3.00 per share (“Backstop Warrants”). The Backstop Warrants contain a “cashless exercise” feature, such that, in lieu of making a cash payment to NOVAGOLD upon the exercise of the Backstop Warrant, the warrant holder may elect instead to receive upon such exercise (either in whole or in part) the net number of common shares equivalent to the Backstop Warrants’ intrinsic value, as determined according to the formula set forth in the Backstop Warrants. The Backstop Warrants expire in April 2030 and contain customary anti-dilution provisions. All of the Backstop Warrants remained outstanding at August 31, 2025.
As discussed above, the Company subsequently completed the May 2025 Offering and the backstop commitment expired unexercised in May 2025. The Company determined the Backstop Warrants met the conditions for equity classification in accordance with U.S. GAAP and were included as a component of shareholders’ equity (deficit).
The Company estimated the fair value of the Backstop Warrants using the Black-Scholes option pricing model on the grant date. Key inputs included a 5-year term, an exercise price of $3.00 per share, a risk-free interest rate of 3.97%, and an expected volatility of 51.20%, based on the Company’s 5-year historical stock price. Based on these assumptions, the estimated fair value was $1.55 per warrant, resulting in a total fair value of $39,607. As the Backstop Warrants were not a direct offering cost associated with the May 2025 Offering, the $39,607 was recorded as a non-cash expense in the second quarter of 2025 and included in warrant expense in the consolidated statement of operations. The expense is also presented as a non-cash financing activity in the supplemental disclosures to the consolidated statement of cash flows (Note 15). |