GLOBAL MINING SYMPOSIUM: THE INDUSTRY LOOKS AHEAD / 5 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM
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OCTOBER 11—24, 2021 / VOL. 107 ISSUE 21 / GLOBAL MINING NEWS · SINCE 1915 / $5.25 / WWW.NORTHERNMINER.COM
Agnico Eagle, Kirkland Lake to create new gold giant in US$10.7B merger M&A
| Combined company will have a market cap of about US$24 billion
Workers rescued from Vale’s Totten nickel mine near Sudbury RESCUE
| Miners were trapped underground for three days
BY MARILYN SCALES AND DANIEL SEKULICH
T
hirty-nine miners that had been stuck underground for three days at Vale’s (NYSE: VALE) Totten nickel mine, about 40 km west of Sudbury, were safely brought to surface on Sept. 29. The miners, none of whom were injured, had been trapped following an incident that occurred around 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 26, when a loadhaul-dumper bucket slung under the cage became hung up in the shaft, blocking access to the shaft and cage. With the shaft unusable, the miners reported to refuge stations on the various levels where they had been working, which ranged from about 914 to 1219 metres underground. The company reported that the refuge stations were stocked with food, water, medicine and communication to the surface. Fifty-eight responders were assembled from Vale’s mine rescue team and Ontario Mine Rescue’s Sudbury BY CECILIA JAMASMIE
C
anadian gold miners Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX: AEM; NYSE: AEM) and Kirkland Lake Gold (TSX: KL; NYSE: KL; ASX: KLA) are combining their businesses in a stock deal valued at $13.5 billion (US$10.7 billion). As part of the transaction announced on September 28, Kirkland Lake Gold shareholders will receive 0.7935 of an Agnico Eagle Mines common share for each stock they hold. The deal values each Kirkland Lake share at US$50.63, or a discount of 9% to the stock’s close on September 27. The combined miner will have a market capitalization of approximately US$24 billion. Once closed, the merger would also leave Agnico with US$2.3 billion of available liquidity, a mineral reserve base of 48 million ounces of gold (969 million tonnes at 1.53 grams gold per tonne) and a pipeline of development and exploration projects. The global gold miner is expected to generate 3.4 million ounces of gold this year and could herald more consolidation in the gold industry where investors look for deals that unlock value, Agnico CEO Sean Boyd said during a conference call. Agnico shareholders will own
Agnico Eagle’s CEO Sean Boyd (front left) with a gold doré bar at the Meliadine mine in Nunavut. AGNICO EAGLE MINES
about 54% of the combined company, while those of Kirkland Lake will have a 46% ownership. “Both companies don’t have to do this,” Boyd said on the conference call. But the “strategic rationale makes sense and the industrial logic is there,” with a synergy of US$2 billion over the next ten years. The new Agnico will be led by a combined board and management team. Boyd, its current boss, will become executive chairman, while Kirkland Lake CEO Tony Makuch will be the combined company’s CEO. Agnico has mines in Canada, Finland and Mexico as well as exploration and development activities in those countries and the United States and Colombia. Kirkland Lake has the Macassa mine and Detour Lake mine, both in northern Ontario, and the Fosterville mine in Australia. “This deal is more about a number of mines and location of mines in terms of manageability, rather than an overall ounce number,” Boyd said. See M&A / 16
NICKEL: WORLD’S TOP TEN PRODUCERS / 3
unit and headed underground. The responders began descending an escapeway ladder system towards the miners about a day and a half after the cage blocked the shaft. The rescuers then began to assist the miners for the trip up the ladders to the surface. This entailed a climb of about a kilometre, with rest stations about every 100 metres along the way, and the climb took about half a day. The first miners made it to the surface just before sunrise on Sept. 28, where they were met by medical staff and other first responders. By late that afternoon, 35 of the 39 miners were safely aboveground. The last four to be rescued made it out just before 5:00 a.m. on Sept. 29. “I’d like to congratulate our rescue team,” Vale CEO Eduardo Bartolomeo said in a press release after meeting with employees and rescue personnel in Sudbury. “Bringing our 39 employees home safe and healthy See RESCUE / 16
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