JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Lithium-focused MetalsTech on Thursday announced the potential spinout of its cobalt business and said its subsidiary had secured an option to buy a high-grade cobalt/silver mine in Ontario.
MetalsTech, which is headquartered in Western Australia, but has projects in Quebec and Ontario, said it would separately list its iCobalt subsidiary on the ASX in the first quarter of next year.
Alto Capital has been appointed lead manager for the iCobalt spinout.
In addition to several lithium projects, MetalsTech owns the Bay Lake cobalt project, near the historic silver mining camp of the Cobalt township, in Ontario.
Subsidiary iCobalt has entered into a binding option agreement to acquire a project about 70 km from Bay Lake. The target is the Rusty Lake mine – a past producing mine that last operated in 1966. It is located near Leith.
iCobalt has already paid the vendors, New Found Gold, C$40 000 for a 30-day exclusivity period and has to pay C$60 000 upon completion of a due diligence.
Once iCobalt completes an initial public offering, it will pay the vendors C$225 000 in cash and issue three-million shares at a deemed price of 20c each to New Found Gold.
New Found Gold will also retain a 2% net smelter royalty (NSR) over all metals produced from the project, except for cobalt, over which it will retain a 0.5% NSR.