Alamos Gold acquires Orford Mining at premium

Sun rising over Orford Mining’s Chukotat camp at the West Raglan project in Nunavik, Quebec. Credit: Orford Mining

Canadian intermediate gold producer Alamos Gold (TSX: AGI; NYSE: AGI) announced on Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Toronto-based junior miner Orford Mining (TSXV: ORM).

The purchase will be an all-stock purchase, with Orford shareholders receiving 0.005588 of an Alamos common share for each Orford share. This represents an implied value of C$0.10 per Orford share, for an over 100% premium to its Friday closing price.

Alamos currently owns approximately 27.5% of Orford’s outstanding shares. Excluding those shares, Alamos expects to issue approximately 900,000 shares for total consideration of C$16 million.

The main asset acquired from Orford is the Qiqavik gold project in Quebec. Alamos will also gain interests in several exploration stage critical mineral and gold projects in Quebec, including West Raglan, the Joutel properties and Nunavik Lithium.

The Qiqavik project is a camp-scale property covering 438 square kilometres in the Cape Smith belt in Nunavik, in the north of the province. It covers the 40-km long Qiqavik break, a major crustal-scale structure controlling gold mineralization on the belt. Early-stage exploration completed to date indicates that high-grade gold occurrences are controlled by structural splays off the Qiqavik break.

Orford commenced exploration on the project in 2016, and since then has identified over 40 highly prospective targets across the previously underexplored property through mapping, prospecting, till sampling, geophysics, and limited drilling.

These targets include several high-grade boulder and gold grain-in-till trends, as well as outcrop gold showings across the property, according to Orford.

Shares of Alamos Gold rose 1.2% by 11:32 a.m. EDT in Toronto. The miner has a market capitalization of C$6.85 billion ($5.09 billion). Orford’s shares surged by 111% for a market capitalization of C$17.2 million ($12.8m).

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