TORONTO – Alamos Gold Inc. (TSX:AGI) said Thursday there was no new information that would cause it to change its hostile offer for Aurizon Mines Ltd. (TSX:ARZ) following a formal rejection by the company’s board.
Alamos president and chief executive John McCluskey said every Aurizon shareholder the company has met has expressed strong support for the offer.
“Four large, sophisticated institutional shareholders of Aurizon found the offer price so compelling, they agreed to sell us Aurizon shares at the offer price immediately prior to our offer to the public,” McCluskey said in a statement.
“We encourage remaining Aurizon shareholders to continue tendering to the offer.”
Alamos already owns a 16 per cent stake in Aurizon.
Aurizon has eight properties in Quebec, including the Casa Berardi gold mine, as well as several development and exploration projects, while Alamos has a mine and mineral rights in Mexico and an advanced development project in Turkey.
Alamos is offering $4.65 in cash or 0.2801 of an Alamos share for each Aurizon share with the cash portion capped at a maximum of $305 million and the stock portion limited to 23.5 million Alamos shares.
However, Aurizon has said the offer was actually less than $4.65 per share due to the price of Alamos shares, which have traded lower since the proposal was first announced earlier this month.
Aurizon shares were down eight cents at $4.68 on Thursday, while Alamos shares were down 49 cents at $15.56.