Rio Alto (TSX:V.RIO, Stock Forum) announced today that the company had completed its plan of arrangement with Sulliden Gold (TSX:SUE, Stock Forum) originally announced in June of this year.
According to the news release, the company now has 328.8 million common shares issued and outstanding, including the 151.7 million common shares issued as consideration under the Sulliden arrangement.
An additional 20.9 million company common shares have been reserved for issuance in connection with new Rio Alto options issued to former option holders of Sulliden and in connection with the Rio Alto common shares that may be issued upon exercise of existing warrants to purchase Sulliden common shares.
As a result of the agreement, two Sulliden nominees joined the company's board, being Peter Tagliamonte, the Co-Chairman and CEO of Sulliden prior to the arrangement and Bruce Humphrey, a Director of Sulliden prior to the arrangement.
Company CEO, Alex Black, commented on the completed arrangement, “We are very excited about the prospects of Rio Alto and the value proposition we are able to deliver to our shareholders based on strong existing gold production at La Arena and future gold production at Shahuindo.”
He went on to explain, “The similarities and proximity of Shahuindo to our La Arena mine allow us to leverage the core skills of our management and operating teams and with the transaction now complete, we are eager to focus our efforts on increasing oxide reserves at La Arena and building Shahuindo.”
Then he concluded, “We have begun the process of integrating Sulliden's operations with our own and continue to identify value generative opportunities as we prepare to deliver on our commitment of gold production at Shahuindo by late 2015 or early 2016.”
Sulliden shares are anticipated to cease trading and will be delisted from the TSX, BVL and OTCQX in approximately 2-3 business days.
Rio Alto was in the news recently when the company announced shareholder approval of the aforementioned plan of arrangement six days ago.
Shares rose 6.02% on the news to $2.64 per share.
Currently there are 328.8m outstanding shares with a market cap of $467.5 million.