The broad markets traded lower on Friday, with the main indexes in the United States on pace for their worst month since May 2012, as investor fret over quickly falling currencies in emerging markets. Stocks in Toronto weren’t faring much better, with both the blue-chip TSX Composite and smaller Venture Exchange setting up for their second straight weekly loss to pare early gains in the month.
There’s a ray of sunshine amid the dark clouds with a couple gold miners getting a blessing from shareholders to join forces. Asanko Gold Inc. (TSX:AKG) and PMI Gold Corp. (TSX:PMV) announced a definitive agreement on December 17 to combine their businesses to create a mid-tier gold producer with significant resources in Ghana, West Africa.
Per the agreement, each shareholder of PMI Gold will receive 0.21 shares of Asanko, putting a value of each share of PMV at $0.441. That was a 79% premium to the 20-day volume weighted average price (VWAP) of PMV shares as the day before the deal was announced.
Shares of PMV rose to near the buyout price the day of the news, but slinked back downward as low as 33 cents each in subsequent days.
Even news that independent proxy firms Institutional Shareholders Services and Glass Lewis & Co. recommended that shareholders vote for the transaction didn’t push shares up to the valued offer price.
At the time, Glass Lewis commented, "We believe the proposed merger is strategically and financially compelling and structured in a fair and reasonable fashion, from a valuation perspective, for both companies and their respective shareholders."
What shareholders will be a part of is a merged company with the neighboring Esaase and Obotan gold projects in Ghana, with a combined resource estimate 7.5 million ounces of gold in the Measured and Indicated category and another 2.9 million ounces Inferred. Of those estimates, 4.8 million ounces are considered Proven and Probable.
The companies believe that they can be producing about 400,000 ounces of gold each year by 2017 from the two properties. Additional exploration on the consolidated 1,000-kilometer-square land package is expected at high priority targets, which should further bolster further resource estimates.
The new company will have $280 million in cash and access to more through a $150 million arranged debt facility.
This was the second crack at merging the companies. Early in 2013, the deal fell apart when supermajority support was not being achieved. A new, more robust Pre-Feasibility Study for Asanko’s Esaase project and committed financing to the project is pulling the merger together this time around. Of the votes cast at a PMI shareholders’ meeting, 99.5% voted in favor of the merger.
Subject to other customary conditions, including the approval by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the transaction is expected to be effective in about one week.
Shares of AKG popped ahead by 11.9% Friday action to $1.97, while PMV shares climbed 12.5% to 40.5 cents.
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