What is a "unit"?
A private placement is a sale of securities to a select group of investors — typically accredited investors — rather than a public offering on the open market. It is the primary way exploration-stage juniors fund drilling, because they usually have no revenue and rely on equity to keep the lights on.
Rather than selling plain shares, juniors almost always package the raise into units. A unit is a bundle priced as a single security. In junior mining the bundle is nearly always:
1 unit = 1 common share + 1 warrant (or ½ warrant)
So when a release says "the Company will issue 20,000,000 units at $0.10 per unit for gross proceeds of $2,000,000," the investor is buying 20 million shares and 20 million warrants (or 10 million, if it is a half-warrant deal) for their money.
How the warrant works
A warrant is the right, not the obligation, to buy one additional common share at a fixed price before it expires. Three numbers define it:
- Exercise (strike) price. What you pay to convert one warrant into one share — e.g. $0.15. Usually set above the unit price to give the stock room to run first.
- Term / expiry. How long the warrant is valid, measured from the closing date — commonly 12, 24, or 36 months. After that it expires worthless.
- Coverage. How many warrants come per unit — one full warrant, or one-half warrant.
A warrant is in the money when the share trades above the exercise price, and out of the money when it trades below. Only in-the-money warrants get exercised — and when they do, the company receives fresh capital (the exercise price × the number of shares issued). That is why a healthy warrant book is a second, delayed funding source for a junior whose stock is performing.
Full warrants vs half warrants
"Warrant coverage" is one of the fastest reads on how hungry a company was for capital:
| Structure | Warrants per unit | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Full warrant | 1 whole warrant | Bigger sweetener; often a tougher market or a harder sell |
| Half warrant | ½ warrant (2 needed per share) | Less dilution; common in stronger markets |
| No warrant | 0 | Strong demand — the company didn't need to sweeten |
All else equal, a half-warrant deal is friendlier to existing shareholders because it embeds less potential future dilution than a full-warrant deal at the same size.
How to read a private placement announcement
Private placement press releases follow a near-standard template. Here is a typical line and how to decode it:
"The Company intends to complete a non-brokered private placement of up to 15,000,000 units at a price of $0.10 per unit for gross proceeds of up to $1,500,000. Each unit comprises one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant. Each whole warrant is exercisable at $0.15 for a period of 24 months from closing."
- Non-brokered — no investment bank is running it; the company placed it directly (lower fees, but often a sign of a smaller raise).
- 15,000,000 units at $0.10 — size and price; $1.5M raised, 15M new shares.
- one-half of one warrant — 7.5M warrants total (half of 15M units).
- exercisable at $0.15 for 24 months — the warrants pay the company another $0.15/share if the stock clears $0.15 within two years.
Watch also for a finder's fee or agent's / broker warrants (compensation to whoever arranged the deal), a four-month statutory hold period on Canadian placements, and any acceleration clause that lets the company force early warrant exercise if the stock runs.
Find recent private placements with warrants
We track live and recently-closed junior mining financings — including their unit structure and warrant terms — and publish a weekly roundup of everything announced across gold, silver, copper, lithium, and critical minerals.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a unit in a junior mining private placement?
A unit is a bundled security sold in a private placement. Almost every junior mining unit is one common share plus a warrant (or a fraction of a warrant). Investors buy units at a set price — for example '$0.10 per unit, each unit comprising one common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant.' The share gives immediate ownership; the warrant gives the right to buy more shares later at a fixed price.
How does a warrant work in a mining financing?
A warrant is the right — not the obligation — to buy one additional common share at a fixed exercise (strike) price before an expiry date, typically 12 to 36 months out. If the stock trades above the exercise price before expiry, the warrant is 'in the money' and the holder can exercise it for a profit, giving the company more cash. If the stock stays below the exercise price, the warrant expires worthless. Warrants are a sweetener that makes the placement more attractive without lowering the headline unit price.
What is the difference between a full warrant and a half warrant?
A full warrant means each unit includes one whole warrant, so one warrant buys one share. A half warrant (or 'one-half of one warrant') means each unit includes 0.5 of a warrant, so two units' worth of warrants are needed to buy a single share. Half-warrant deals dilute less and are common in stronger markets; full-warrant deals are a bigger sweetener used when a company needs to attract capital in a weak market.
What does 'each whole warrant exercisable at $0.15 for 24 months' mean?
It means the exercise (strike) price of each whole warrant is $0.15, and the warrant can be exercised any time up to 24 months from the closing date. If the share trades above $0.15 during that window, exercising for $0.15 and selling at the market price is profitable, and the company collects $0.15 per share in new capital. After 24 months the warrant expires.
Do private placement warrants dilute existing shareholders?
Yes. The unit shares dilute immediately, and the warrants represent potential future dilution — if exercised, they add more shares to the count. A large warrant overhang can also cap the share price, because holders often sell into strength to lock in the spread between the market price and the exercise price. Reading the full unit terms (warrant coverage, exercise price, expiry) tells you how much future dilution is embedded in a financing.
What is an accelerated expiry or acceleration clause on a warrant?
An acceleration clause lets the company force early exercise if the share price trades at or above a stated level (say $0.30) for a set number of consecutive days (often 10 or 20). When triggered, the company issues a notice and the warrants expire in ~30 days unless exercised. Acceleration clauses let a company pull in warrant capital sooner and clean up the warrant overhang when the stock is performing.
Where can I find recent junior mining private placements with warrants?
Junior Mining Intelligence tracks open (live) private placements and closed financings, including their unit structure and warrant terms, and publishes a weekly financing roundup of the raises announced each week across gold, silver, copper, lithium and critical minerals. See the open financings and weekly financing roundup pages for the latest warrant deals.
Related
Put this to work
Warrant overhang and dilution are measurable rather than guessed at. These do the measuring:
Warrant Overhang Radar
Every live warrant tranche in the market: what a stock must reach before they're exercisable, the cash that lands in treasury when they are, and when the overhang expires.
Dilution Tracker
Track a company's share dilution from its financing history — shares issued per raise, cumulative dilution, and outstanding warrant overhang.
Financing Flow Tracker
Track where capital is flowing in junior mining. Monthly trends, by commodity, by type. Spot smart money before the crowd.
Open Financings — Participate
Every junior mining raise currently accepting subscriptions, updated as deals are announced. Register the amount you want through the Participate in Financing flow on the company page, and see how far each round has already filled.
Closed Financings Database
The full history of completed raises — pricing, size and warrant terms deal by deal. How you tell whether a company is raising into strength or grinding its share count higher.