The Island Gold mine. Alamos Gold photo
Alamos Gold (TSE: AGI) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire shares of Manitou Gold (TSX: MTU). The acquisition will consolidate Alamos’ existing ownership of Manitou shares and triple its regional land package around Island Gold with the addition of the Goudreau property in Ontario.
This includes 40,000 hectares adjacent to and along strike from the Island mine, adding significant exploration potential across the relatively underexplored Michipicoten Greenstone Belt. This is expected to increase Alamos’ land package around the Island gold deposit to 55,277 hectares, a 267% increase.
The expanded land package will now include the majority of the mineral tenure between the only two mines within the belt – the Island gold mine and the past-producing Renabie gold mine (aggregate production of 1.1 million oz. of gold from 1947-1991).
The Goudreau property also adds six additional belt-scale deformation zones hosting several gold occurrences, including Cradle Lake-Emily Bay, Loch Lomond, Missinaibi, Baltimore, Easy Lake and Renabie deformation zones.
Alamos will buy all outstanding common shares of Manitou at C$0.05 per Manitou share. The total transaction value of approximately C$17.2 million. The consideration will be satisfied by the issuance of common shares of Alamos at a deemed price of C$14.18 per Alamos share, which is based on the 20-day volume weighted price of the Alamos shares on the TSX.
The arrangement is non-arm’s-length as Alamos currently owns approximately 19% of the issued and outstanding Manitou shares.
Under the terms of the agreement, Manitou shareholders will receive 0.003525 of an Alamos common share for each Manitou share. This represents a premium of 95% based on Alamos and Manitou’s respective closing prices on February 27 and an 88% premium to Manitou’s 20-day volume-weighted average price.
“Having successfully acquired over 360 km2 of contiguous exploration claims and proven its exploration prospectivity over the last five years, we are confident that Alamos is the right operator to advance our assets through the next stages of exploration and development,” Manitou CEO Richard Murphy said in a news release.
