Silver miner Hecla Mining (HL 4.48%) has completed the acquisition of Aurizon Mines, for which it paid approximately $760 million, the company announced today.
Pointing to three "long-life, high-grade, low-cost operations" that are all located in what it calls "mining-friendly" North America, Hecla CEO Phillips S. Baker Jr. was quoted as saying: "We expect to generate significantly higher precious metals production, more cash flow and have a larger reserve base that will continue to grow from exploration of our very large land positions that are near existing operations."
Hecla had beat out a competing bid from Alamos Gold that was lower. Alamos had said the Hecla bid would create a "highly leveraged, hedged, debt-laden, financially constrained company."
Following the approval of Aurizon's shareholders, Hecla moved to complete the transaction by acquiring all of the outstanding common shares of Aurizon for total consideration of approximately C$514 million and nearly 57 million shares of Hecla common stock.
Hecla says the acquisition brings to it Aurizon's Quebec, Canada, Casa Berardi gold mine that is expected to produce 125,000 to 130,000 ounces of gold in 2013 and is expected to operate for more than a decade. Aurizon also brings several exploration and pre-development projects that offer potential future production growth.
Aurizon's stock will no longer trade on the NYSE MKT exchange beginning this morning.
