TORONTO (miningweekly.com) - Securityholders of Fording Canadian Coal Trust on Tuesday approved the sale of the company's assets to Canadian diversified miner Teck Cominco.

Teck announced in July that it would offer $82,00 in cash and 0,245 of a Teck Cominco class B subordinate share for every Fording unit, in a deal that would make it North America's biggest exporter of metallurgical coal, and the second-largest in the world.

Meanwhile, Teck Cominco announced separately on Tuesday that it had entered definitive credit agreements for a total of $9,81-billion, which it would use to fund the cash portion of the Fording acquisition.

The announcement that the agreements had been concluded for a fully underwritten $4-billion senior term loan facility and $5,81-billion senior bridge loan facility puts to rest speculation which arose earlier this month that the miner may struggle to raise financing for the deal, because of the crisis in the US financial markets.

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