PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Bauxite developer Metro Mining has welcomed a declaration of unacceptable circumstances from the Takeovers Panel in relation to the affairs of takeover target Gulf Alumina.
Metro in December last year launched a takeover offer for Gulf Alumina, offering Gulf shareholders 3.3 new Metro shares for every one gulf share held.
Metro in February this year submitted an application to the Takeovers Panel, to address concerns that Metro had in regards to information Gulf was providing its shareholders.
The Takeovers Panel on Tuesday conceded that the target’s statement had contained insufficient or misleading information regarding the value of Gulf, and had now demanded further information from the takeover target in the form of an independent expert’s report to opine on whether the Metro offer was fair and reasonable.
The Takeovers Panel had demanded that Gulf issue a supplementary target statement which should include the disclosure of value, if provided, as well as other corrective disclosures.
Metro had meanwhile reminded Gulf shareholders that its takeover offer was now unconditional, and it had urged shareholder to accept the offer.
Gulf held about 2 000 km2 of partially drilled bauxite mining tenements and rights in the Cape York peninsula, in northern Queensland, and a further 320 km in the Northern Territory. The takeover target was aiming to develop a three-million-tonne-a-year operation at its Skardon River tenements, ramping up to five-million tonnes a year of direct shipping ore.