canoe.com
Barrick shares climb after
takeover bid extension
TORONTO, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Shares of
Barrick Gold Corp. jumped on Friday after
the Canadian gold producer extended its
C$160-million hostile takeover bid for
Argentina Gold Corp. .
The two Canadian companies have been
embroiled in a bitter war of nerves since
December when Barrick launched a surprise
C$4-a-share, or C$128-million, bid for
control of its high-flying rival and the prized
Veladero gold mine in northwestern
Argentina.
Toronto-based Barrick, which owns 9.9
percent of Argentina Gold and 40 percent of
Veladero, later sweetened the offer to C$5 a
share at the prompting of several large
Argentina Gold shareholders.
Barrick rose C$0.80 to close at C$28.85 a
share on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Argentina Gold also nudged up C$0.10 to
close at C$5.35 a share on the Vancouver
Stock Exchange.
Barrick's sweetened bid was due to expire
just after midnight on Thursday, but company
officials opted to extend the deadline until
February 9 to give shareholders more time to
ponder the offer.
Barrick, which operates the Pascua gold
property six kilometres (3.8 miles) from
Veladero, is keen to fold the Veladero
property into its growing operations in the
remote Andean mountain range on the
Chilean-Argentine border.
Despite the last-minute extension, Barrick
said it remained in the driver's seat in what
has become a grudge match pitting North
America's second largest gold producer
against one of the hottest mining companies on
the small but lively VSE.
"It's our cash on the table. We could pull the
offer anytime. We can pull our conditions or
we can take up and pay for what (number of
shares) is in the box already," Barrick
spokesman Vincent Borg said.
Borg refused to say how many Argentina
Gold shares had already been tendered to
Barrick.
Barrick's extension also followed the
British Columbia Securities Commission's
decision on Wednesday to throw out
Argentina Gold's recently-adopted
shareholder rights plan, or "poison pill," after
ruling it was not in the public interest.
Argentina Gold adopted the plan two weeks
ago to buy more time in its search for an
alternative to Barrick's offer, which it labeled
"inadequate, opportunistic and coercive."
The Vancouver-based company urged its
shareholders this week to reject the Barrick
offer and launched an ambitious search for a
"white knight" bid.
Argentina Gold also continued to tantalize
investors with drill results indicating the
Veladero property could contain much more
than the previous estimate of 4.5 million
ounces of gold and 119 million ounces of
silver.
The company has said Veladero could
contain 20 million ounces of gold.
"There is a growing recognition of the
upside potential of the Veladero project and
also a recognition that the land controlled by
Argentina Gold encompasses an entire mining
district," Argentina Gold said in a press
release on Friday.
The company also said it had sold on 2
million of its shares at a price of C$5.25 a
share to institutional investors on a private
placement basis on Friday in an effort to raise
cash for continued drilling at Veladero and
expenses related to the Barrick takeover fight. |
