We have 100 million poundswakey wakey Rio Tinto Makes $567...

We have 100 million pounds

wakey wakey





Rio Tinto Makes $567 Million Offer for Hathor to Trump Cameco
October 19, 2011, 7:12 PM EDT


Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Rio Tinto Group, the world’s fourth- largest uranium producer, agreed to pay C$578 million ($567 million) to acquire Canadian uranium explorer Hathor Exploration Ltd., trumping a hostile bid by Cameco Corp.

Shareholders of Vancouver-based Hathor would receive C$4.15 a share, Rio said yesterday in a statement. The bid represents a 55 percent premium to Hathor’s closing share price on Aug. 25, the day before Cameco made its C$3.75-a-share offer.

Hathor’s board unanimously recommended investors accept the latest bid, London-based Rio said. Hathor, which controls the undeveloped Roughrider uranium deposit in northern Saskatchewan, previously said investors should reject Cameco’s “predatory” offer.

Acquiring Hathor would boost Rio’s global uranium strategy and complement existing exploration assets in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, Rio said in the statement. The company’s Australian uranium unit, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd., has been battling declining production of the raw material in nuclear fuel because of lower grades and bad weather at its Ranger mine in the Northern Territory.

If completed, the Hathor deal would be the most expensive uranium acquisition since the end of 2008 as measured by the dollar value divided by indicated and inferred pounds of uranium in the ground, according to data published in August by Raymond James Ltd. Rio is paying about $9.88 a pound for Hathor’s 57.9 million-pound lode, more than the $9.82 that Rosatom Corp.’s ARMZ Uranium Holding Co. paid for Mantra Resources Ltd. in June, according to Raymond James.