Vancouver — A little more than a year after launching takeover bids for Nevada Pacific Gold (NPG-V, NVPGF-O), Tone Resources (tns-v, tonrf-o) and White Knight Resources (wkr-v, witnf-o), U.S. Gold (UXG-T, UXG-X) stands poised to close the acquisitions following strong support by shareholders of the targeted companies.
U.S. Gold has taken up and accepted 93.7% of the common shares of White Knight Resources, 83.5% of Nevada Pacific Gold shares and 89.4% of Tone Resource shares under its offer, which expired on March 23.
“We will now move quickly to integrate these four companies,” said U.S. Gold chairman and CEO Rob McEwen on plans to consolidate the mineral projects in the heart of north-central Nevada’s Cortez trend.
Shareholders of White Knight will receive 0.35 of an exchangeable share for each full share tendered, Nevada Pacific Gold shareholders get 0.23 of a U.S. Gold share, and 0.26 of an exchangeable share will be issued for every Tone Resources share tendered. Just over 38 million exchangeable shares of U.S. Gold will be issued under the plan.
With its takeover offers now expired, U.S. Gold plans to take up the remaining shares in the three target companies that have not been tendered.
McEwen has stated that his goal in the acquisitions is to create “Nevada’s ultimate exploration company” nestled close to Barrick Gold (ABX-T, ABX-N) and Rio Tinto’s (RTP-N, RIO-L) large Cortez joint venture.
Recent drilling by U.S. Gold on its Tonkin project, located about 16 km south of Cortez, returned a number of significant intersections including the discovery of a new zone of gold mineralization in the Southern Area. In mid-2006, the company earmarked US$30 million for exploration of the project, ambitiously contracting eight drill rigs.
Shares of the three acquired juniors remained halted on March 26 while U.S. Gold notched up 6 in Amex trading to close at US$4.19. Assuming full take up of all shares in the trio of juniors, U.S. Gold will have up to 99 million shares outstanding, giving it a market capitalization of around US$415 million using its recent closing price.
Be the first to comment on "US Gold wraps up Nevada deals"