Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) is ready to finish building its giant copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo after its largest shareholder pumped an additional C$612 million (roughly $454m) into the Canadian company.
China’s state-owned CITIC Metal is paying C$3.98 per share, a premium of 29% over Ivanhoe’s last closing price. The investment, the second major one in less than a year, paired with the Vancouver-based miner’s current cash balance of about $512 million, will increase the company’s total cash on hand to C$1.3 billion ($1 billion), the parties said.
“The investment announced today will comfortably provide Ivanhoe with the equity cushion required to fast-track Kamoa-Kakula’s six million-tonne-per-annum Phase 1 mine to production,” billionaire Robert Friedland, the company’s founder and executive chairman said in the statement.
Friedland, who made his fortune from the Voisey’s Bay nickel project in Canada in the 1990s, has said the capacity of the project’s first phase could later be easily tripled. He believes Kamoa-Kakula has the potential to become the world’s second-largest copper mine.
More to come…
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