Kinross seen winning Aurelian with C$890 mln bid
TORONTO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Kinross Gold (K.TO) looks set to triumph in its C$890 million ($840 million) bid for Aurelian Resources ARU.TO, although the takeover is by no means a done deal because of concerns a new Ecuadorean mining law could hurt the value of Aurelian's Fruta del Norte gold deposit.
Kinross announced the friendly offer in July, drawing speculation about rival bids, concerns that Kinross had overpaid and complaints posted on retail investor blogs that Aurelian was selling out at a fraction of its true worth.
Shares of Aurelian -- which closed at C$5.33 on Wednesday just hours ahead of the bid's expiry -- dropped more than 50 percent in April after Ecuador froze mining activities pending a rewriting of its mining law, throwing projects in the country into uncertainty.
Kinross spokesman Steve Mitchell would not comment on how many shares have been tendered to the bid so far, but said the company was optimistic it would succeed.
With an inferred resource of 13.7 million ounces of gold and 22 million ounces of silver, Fruta del Norte is one of the world's top undeveloped deposits and could become a key mine down the road. But uncertainty over the details of the new law and potential tax structure made some cautious on the deal.
"I thought that Kinross paid a very handsome price for Aurelian, and I don't think a lot of other companies wanted to stomach the risk," said John Ing, president of Toronto investment house Maison Placements.
He said he expects the bid will be successful, as did Barry Allan, an analyst at Research Capital.
"I think there's a pretty good probability of it," he said.
Kinross has offered 0.317 of a share and 0.1429 of a warrant for each Aurelian share.
Given an assumed vale of 92 Canadian cents per warrant, that valued Aurelian at C$5.86 a share on Wednesday, a 9.9 percent premium on the company's stock price, suggesting some doubted the deal would go through.
Shares of Kinross ended down 43 Canadian cents at C$15.57.
($1=$1.06 Canadian) (Reporting by Cameron French; editing by Rob Wilson)
