Taseko to buy copper miner in $80 million deal

Taseko | BCBusiness
Taseko’s Gilbratar mine project north of Williams Lake.

The deal will add a late-stage mine to Taseko’s portfolio and give Curis access to capital

Taseko Mines Ltd. announced Monday that it intends to acquire Curis Resources in an all-stock deal.

The agreement, pegged at around $80 million, will give Taseko access to Curis’s Florence Copper Project and thereby “strengthen the company’s near term development pipeline,” said Russell Hallbauer, Taseko CEO and president in a statement.
 
Taseko will acquire all issued and outstanding shares, and the transaction is subject to shareholder, regulatory and court approval.
 
Earlier this year, the federal government rejected Taseko’s $1.5-bilion New Prosperity project, an open pit copper and gold mine in the Caribou, on environmental grounds. The acquisition will add a stake in a late-stage mine to Taseko’s portfolio, and give Curis access to capital, said David Copeland, Curis CEO, in the statement.
 
Curis is a Vancouver-based mineral exploration and development company whose principal asset is a copper mine in central Arizona.
 
Under the terms of the deal, each Curis shareholder will be entitled to exchange a share in Curis for $0.44 of a common share in Taseko. Following the deal, Taseko will hold 88 per cent of the former company’s stock, and Curis’s previous shareholders will hold the 12 per cent remainder. That transaction would value the acquired company at roughly $80 million.
 
Both Curis and Tasko are associated with Vancouver-based, privately held mining group Hunter Dickinson Inc., which acted as an advisor on the deal.
 
At the time of publication, Taseko’s shares were down 5.17 per cent at $2.20 following Monday’s announcement. Curis was trading at 94 cents.