Coeur dAlene Mines Corp. has filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that would allow the mining company to offer various securities worth a total of up to $125 million.


Securities that could be offered under the statement, a so-called shelf registration, include debt securities, preferred stock, common stock, or warrants. The registration includes a prospectus that must be reviewed by the SEC and provided to investors in any sale of securities.


Shelf registrations enable companies to register up to two years in advance to sell securities; they allow a company to sell securities expeditiously at a time it deems to be advantageous.


Its just a good idea, we thought, to go ahead and file this shelf to give us some options to do some things related to our capital structure, says Mitchell Krebs, director of corporate development at Coeur dAlene Mines.


One possible use of proceeds from the issuance of securities under the shelf registration could be for the Coeur dAlene-based company to continue reducing its debt by exchanging outstanding convertible debentures for company stock, he says. In the third quarter this year, Coeur dAlene Mines reduced its total debt to $103.7 million, from $145.5 million at the end of 2001, in part by converting $24 million in outstanding notes to shares of common stock, the company says in its most recently quarterly earnings statement.


Coeur dAlene Mines produces both silver and gold from mines in the U.S. and in Central and South America.