Stillwater Mining Co is to acquire the Canadian company Peregrine Metals for $450 million. This will allow Stillwater Mining to diversify into copper and gold as the Vancouver based Peregrine Altar owns a copper/gold project in the San Juan province in Argentina.
The large and undeveloped project has a measured and indicated resource of 7.4 billion pounds of copper and 1.5 million ounces of gold. Stillwater is paying 0.08136 shares of Stillwater common stock and $1.35 in cash for each common share of Peregrine. Stillwater and Peregrine shareholders will own about 89.5 % and 10.5 % of the combined company.
Stillwater Chief Executive Frank McAllister said in a statement that for several years, one of Stillwater's primary strategic goals has been to grow and diversify our business through the acquisition and development of high-quality mining assets. He added that the takeover will improve its strategic positioning and growth pipeline.
Stillwater Mining owns the Stillwater and East Boulder mines in Montana, the Blitz and Graham Creek projects in Montana and the Marathon project in Ontario. All the mines are platinum group metal projects. With the Altar mine in Argentina the company will get broader diversification into copper as well as meaningful exposure to gold as per Mr McAllister.