PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Base metals developer Altamin is urging shareholders to reject a takeover offer from shareholder VBS Exchange.
VBS earlier this month made an off-market takeover bid for Altamin, offering shareholders 9.5c in cash for all the shares it did not already own. VBS currently has a 19.73% interest in Altamin, and is the company’s largest shareholder.
Altamin on Tuesday told shareholders that the VBS offer represented a 3.1% discount to the highest market price achieved for Altamin shares in the month prior to the announcement of the takeover offer, and represented only a 7.7% premium to its one-month volume weighted average share price.
Altamin also noted that the VBS offer, which implied a value of A$37.2-million to Altamin, was priced at a significant discount to the company’s Gorno zinc project’s net present value of $211-million, as outlined in a 2021 scoping study, which was equivalent to A$300-million at current exchange rates.
The takeover target pointed out that the scoping study had been based on a zinc price of $2 800/t, compared with the current zinc price which was trading around $4 000/t.
The Gorno project is expected to produce 630 000 t of zinc concentrate and 108 000 t of lead/silver concentrate over its mine life.
In addition to the Gorno zinc project, Altamin also has a portfolio of battery metals-focused exploration projects in Italy.