The embattled company attempting to revive a tungsten and tin mine in Devon has secured an injection of up to £71 million from the taxpayer-backed National Wealth Fund, less than two years after warning that its future was in doubt.
The fund will make an equity investment of £36 million in Tungsten West, the Aim-listed business based in Plymouth, in exchange for a 7 per cent stake, alongside £25 million in debt. The company will also have the option to draw on a further uncommitted facility of £10 million, according to the investment announcement published by the National Wealth Fund on Tuesday.
The money will go towards repaying a $25 million (£18.5 million) bridge loan provided by Gregory Coffey, a major shareholder in the company, and towards ramping the Hemerdon mine in south Devon up to full production capacity by the first quarter of next year.
In exchange, the government will have the option to purchase 50 per cent of the tungsten produced at Hemerdon, together with the right to appoint a non-executive director to the board and a board observer. The fund expects the restart to support around 350 direct jobs.
From £40,000 in the bank to a state-backed restart
The scale of the reversal is stark. In December 2024 the company cautioned that there was “material uncertainty” over its ability to continue operating after its cash reserves dwindled to £40,000. By the end of September last year they stood at just £1 million, while pre-tax losses for the six months to that date widened to £40.4 million, from £13.9 million a year earlier.
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