TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed Frontera Copper has retained RBC Capital Markets as its exclusive financial adviser, the company said on Tuesday.

RBC will “assist in the examination and consideration of various corporate strategic alternatives, including the evaluation of any formal purchase offers that may be received from one or more potential acquirers”.

Frontera announced on November 28 that a Mexican group, Invecture, had bought 16% of the company and planned to increase its interest to a controlling stake.

The copper producer had had talks with Invecture, as well “other interested parties,” but has not received any formal offers or entered into agreements, the firm said at the time.

Frontera announced on November 11 that it would halt mining at its flagship Piedras Verdes operation in Mexico.

The company, which will continue recovering copper from leach-pad inventories at Piedras Verdes, expects to produce between 9-million and 11-million pounds of copper in the final three months of 2008.

For the first quarter of 2009, output is estimated at between 6-million and 8-million pounds, assuming mining does not restart by the end of March.

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