Meridian, Northern Orion Shares Up On Yamana Offer

Shares in both Meridian Gold Inc. (MDG) and Northern Orion Resources Inc. (NTO) were up Thursday morning, after Yamana Gold Inc. (AUY) announced a combination offer for both miners.

Meridian shares shot up more than 15% on heavy volumes to roughly C$30.30 at 10:45 a.m. ET, creeping closer to the C$32.25 per share consideration that Meridian shareholders would be expected to fetch from Yamana's stock and cash offer.

Northern Orion shares meanwhile were up almost 6% to roughly C$6.17 on brisk trading. Based on the agreement with Yamana, the company's shareholders would receive 0.543 of a Yamana share which, based on Yamana's closing share price on June 27, 2007, equates to a value of C$7.07 per share.

Yamana shares are down more than 8% from Wednesday's closing price of C$13.02.

Blackmont analyst Richard Gray told clients that Yamana's offer is a very aggressive move to get bigger and he is the most recent analyst to suggest there is potential for a competing offer for Meridian.

Comments

[misterchan:]

And could it be possible that another company might bid for AUY, thereby gobbling up the entire group of candidates? misterchan

2007 Jun 29 10:24 PM