The sabre-rattling between
De Beers recently made an all-cash offer of $4.25 per share to acquire the shares of Winspear in hopes of acquiring the promising Snap Lake diamond project in the Northwest Territories. Winspear is the operator and 66.76%-owner of Snap Lake.
Winspear initially described the offer as “opportunistic, hostile and undervalued.” It then launched a “value recognition program,” which included a scoping study that boosted minable tonnage to 39.5 million tonnes grading 1.7 carats per tonne, for a total of 67 million carats of diamonds. An earlier prefeasibility study put the minable tonnage at 12.6 million tonnes averaging 1.75 carats, for a total of 22 million carats.
De Beers publicly questioned the timing of the scoping study, as well as its findings, and filed an application with the British Columbia Securities Commission. Winspear countered by filing a petition that challenged De Beers’ statements with the Supreme Court of British Columbia. Under the new agreement, both companies agreed not to proceed with these matters.
The agreement also calls for Winspear to waive the application of its shareholder rights protection plan to the De Beers offer. De Beers, in turn, agreed to extend the expiry date of its offer to mid-August.
Be the first to comment on "De Beers, Winspear make peace as bid extended"