Endeavour Mining walks away from takeover talks with Centamin

Canada’s Endeavour Mining (TSX:EDV) has walked away from a potential 1.47 billion pound ($1.9 billion) acquisition of Centamin (LON:CEY) (TSX:CEE), citing lack of information on the targeted company’s assets.

The gold miner said the quality of the data shared by the Egypt-focused company during an accelerated due diligence process was “insufficient” to make a firm offer. Therefore, merger talks have been terminated, it said.

 “We remain convinced about the strategic rationale of combining Endeavour and Centamin to create a diversified gold producer with a high-quality portfolio of assets,” chief executive Sébastien de Montessus said in the statement.

Centamin rebuffed the all-stock takeover proposal from
Endeavour in December, saying it did not offer enough value to Centamin
shareholders.

The UK’s takeover panel agreed to extend a deadline for the
Toronto-listed miner to make a firm offer, to allow more time for the two sides
to engage and share information.

More to come…