Mineral Resources withdraws bid for Anvil Range Mining

Outgunned by Cominco (CLT-T), Mineral Resources (MIC-T) has abandoned its takeover bid for Anvil Range Mining (ARO-T).

Mineral Resources found it was unable to win support for its bid from Anvil Range’s largest shareholder, the Korean industrial and financial house Hyundai, and folded its hand by announcing it would no longer seek a shareholder vote on a proposed private placement that would have given Cominco a large block of shares in Anvil Range.

Clifford Frame, chairman of Mineral Resources, and John Byrne, its president, had consulted with Hyundai, and were told the company would support the private placement.

Also, Anvil Range and Cominco agreed that the placement deal could close on Feb. 5 to allow additional time for Cominco to finish a review of Anvil Range’s now-dormant Faro zinc-lead mine, in the Yukon. The placement, when completed, would give Cominco a 28% interest in Anvil Range.

Mineral Resources had offered to take a minimum 32% position in Anvil Range through a share exchange, proposing to “refinance and restructure” Anvil and bring the Faro mine back into production. Mineral Resources’ Frame had been chief executive officer of Curragh Resources, which operated the Faro mine from 1986 to 1993.

In another development affecting Frame, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia has granted a motion allowing the Westray Mine Public Inquiry to serve interprovincial subpoenas on him and another former Curragh executive, Marvin Pelley.

The Inquiry had sought to have both men appear as witnesses in its investigation of a fatal explosion and fire at Curragh’s Westray coal mine in 1992. The two can now be forced to appear if the inquiry can obtain an enforcement order in Ontario.