Centamin snubs $1.9 billion bid proposal from Endeavour Mining – by Muvija M and Zandi Shabalala (Reuters U.S. – December 3, 2019)

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(Reuters) – Gold miner Centamin Plc on Tuesday rejected a 1.47 billion pound ($1.9 billion) all-stock takeover proposal from Canada’s Endeavour Mining, saying it did not offer enough value to Centamin shareholders.

Toronto-listed Endeavour announced its offer, a 13% premium to Centamin’s last closing price, earlier in the day, seeking to gain control of Centamin’s only operating mine, the Sukari project in Egypt.

The Canadian firm said Centamin had rebuffed several attempts to engage in talks. “The terms of the proposal provide comparatively greater benefit to Endeavour’s shareholders, do not adequately reflect the contribution that Centamin would make to the merged entity,” Centamin said.

Endeavour said it planned to offer 0.0846 of its own shares for each Centamin share, equivalent to about 126.27 pence per share. The combined entity would have produced 1.2 million ounces of gold in 2019 at an all-in sustainable cost – a key industry benchmark – of $875 per ounce, which would make it one of the world’s largest and lowest cost miners, Endeavour said.

Centamin shares, which have underperformed Endeavour’s over the last two years, were up 10% at 123.28 pence at 1230 GMT, topping Britain’s midcap index.

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