(The Canadian Press) VANCOUVER _ Gold miner Oromin Explorations Ltd. (
TSX: T.OLE) is advising its shareholders to hold off on any decisions about a recent takeover offer from Teranga Gold Corp. (
TSX: T.TGZ).
Last month, Teranga made an unsolicited proposal to Oromin shareholders, offering 0.582 of a Teranga share for each Oromin share held.
At the time, the Toronto-based miner said the value of the offer was a 50% premium on a 20-day volume-weighted average trading price of Oromin shares as of May 31.
In a directors' circular, Oromin said the board of directors is reviewing the offer, and has not made any official recommendation.
An independent committee has been set up to examine the offer and ``develop and review alternatives that would maximize value for Oromin and its shareholders,'' the company said.
Further instructions will be given before Teranga's offer expires, it added.
Oromin said one of the reasons why it has not issued a recommendation is that there is uncertainty with Teranga's board of directors. Three people from Mineral Deposits Ltd. (
TSX: T.MDM) were recently nominated to Teranga's board but it announced on Thursday that Mineral Deposits has revoked those nominations.
``While this would appear to clarify the likely composition of the Teranga board of directors, the other reasons for not making a recommendation at this time continue to give rise to uncertainty and, as a result, there is no change in the current position of the board,'' said the company.
Teranga owns 18.7 million Oromin shares, representing 13.6% of outstanding shares. It says it also has an agreement in place with Iamgold Corp. (
TSX: T.IMG) to buy its 16.1 million shares, which will give Teranga 25.3% of outstanding shares.
On Thursday, Oromin fell 2% and was trading at $0.235 a share. The company had a market cap of $32.3 million, based on 137.4 million shares outstanding.