Lundin entity ups stake in Faraday Copper to 19.11%
Nemesia Sarl, a company controlled by trusts settled by the late Adolf Lundin, has increased its stake in Faraday Copper Corp. [FDY-TSX, CPPKF-OTCQX], a company that recently agreed to acquire BHP Group Ltd.’s [BHP-NYSE] San Manuel property in Arizona.
Under the terms of a private placement, Nemesia acquired 3.34 million common shares of Faraday for $5.57 per share or a total of $18.6 million from a third party. This purchase of shares when combined with other shares acquired by Nemesia represents an increase of more than 2.0%. Following the acquisition, Nemesia now holds 56 million common shares or 19.11% of the issued and outstanding shares of Faraday. The percentage increase represents acquisition at market of 4.9 million common shares, the exercise of 1.12 million share purchase warrants, plus the current acquisition and by passive dilution.
Faraday Copper shares rose 0.195% or $0.01 to $5.15 in early trading Friday. The shares currently trade in a 52-week range of $6.69 and $1.21.
The latest announcement comes after Faraday recently signed a definitive deal to acquire BHP Group Ltd.’s San Manuel property in Arizona, a move that creates a multi-asset copper district in the United States.
Faraday President and CEO Paul Harbidge described the acquisition as “transformational.”. “Combining San Manuel with our [adjacent] Copper Creek project, with the support of the Lundin Group and BHP as strategic shareholders, positions us well to become one of the largest undeveloped copper districts in the U.S., with a path to development and near-term production,’’ he said.
Faraday is a well-funded Canadian exploration company with a previous focus on its Copper Creek project, which it describes as one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in North America with open pit and bulk mining potential.
The property is located in Pinal County less than two hours northeast of Tucson, and in the heart of a major northwest-trending belt, which includes well-known copper mines in the Miami-Globe and Ray mining districts, with a major east-northeast trending copper belt made evident by the former BHP Kalamazoo mine in San Manuel, Arizona.
The exploration site covers 41 square kilometres and has a rich history of exploration and mining across patented and unpatented claims. Copper Creek hosts multiple breccia porphyry copper deposits. Two historic copper and molybdenum mineral resource estimates were prepared in accordance with the Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM) standards, identifying the economic potential for both open pit and underground scenarios.
Total measured and indicated resources (open pit and underground) stand at 355.1 million tonnes of grade 0.50% copper and 0.008% molybdenum and 1.3 g/t silver or 0.53% Copper equivalent (CuEq) or 4,126.3 (Mlbs) CuEq).