Loading ...TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian gold miner Centerra Gold has agreed to buy indebted US miner Thompson Creek Metals in a deal worth about $1.1-billion.
Toronto-based Centerra said it would redeem all of Thompson Creek’s secured and unsecured notes at their call price plus accrued and unpaid interest.
As at March 31, Denver, Colorado-based Thompson Creek held $823-million in long-term debt, which it ran up for the 2010 acquisition of the Mount Milligan copper/gold project, in British Columbia, and for the subsequent development of the mine that was expected to produce 270 000 oz/y of gold and up to 65 000 lbs of copper this year.
“The combination with Thompson Creek is a highly compelling transformative transaction that diversifies Centerra’s operating platform and adds low-risk production and cash flow from a very high quality, long-lived asset in Mount Milligan. The acquisition will establish an operating base in Canada – one of the lowest risk mining jurisdictions in the world – which will complement our Canada-based Greenstone project and provide for further flexibility to expand into the Americas,” Centerra CEO Scott Perry stated.
Centerra, which operates Kyrgyzstan’s biggest gold mine and economic dynamo, Kumtor, had been locked in a bitter dispute with the Central Asian nation’s government over profit sharing and project ownership, forcing the company in May to turn to international arbitration. It had steadily been geographically diversifying its asset base.
cont. http://www.miningweekly.com/article/centerra-and-thompson-creek-to-tie-11bn-knot-2016-07-05