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Merger moves among phosphate miners
By AAP | 24.04.2013 05:54 PM
Phosphate is back in fashion, with two offers in two days for a couple of Australian junior miners hoping to produce the fertiliser-making material.
Canadian gold miner Monument Mining has made an $18.3 million, 31 cent a share non-binding proposal for Central Australian Phosphate.
The move is indicative and not an official offer but is a challenge to Australian Rum Jungle Resources' hostile bid.
CEN rejected Rum's smaller $12.7 million offer on Wednesday, which was for one share plus 20 cents in cash for every 20 Central Australian Phosphate share, saying it is neither fair nor reasonable.
CEN's shares shot up by 20 per cent on Wednesday to 2.4 cents and are up 42 per cent in the last two days.
Shares in another Australian phosphate junior, UCL Resources, soared 130 per cent on Tuesday to 31 cents after a generous cash bid that nearly trebled its share price.
Omanian company Marawid Mining increased its stake to 47.5 per cent.
UCL holds a 42.5 per cent stake in the large Sandpiper Marine Phosphate project in Namibia, with Marawid their joint venture partner.
Phosphate is seen by some as set to take off as fertiliser is needed to help produce food and feed a growing global population.
Monument president Robert Baldock said the company was interested in CEN's assets because it wanted to make fertiliser by combining phosphate with sulfuric acid from its own Mengapur Polymetalic project in Malaysia.
RUM wants to combine its adjacent phosphate assets with CEN's to prove up a more economic one billion tonnes.
Its shares were three per cent weaker at 16.5 cents.
