Aztec Resources Ltd requested its shares be suspended from trade today, ahead of confirmation that rights negotiations with Australian Royalties Corporation Pty Ltd were positive.
Aztec Resources Ltd requested its shares be suspended from trade today, ahead of confirmation that rights negotiations with Australian Royalties Corporation Pty Ltd were positive.
Mount Gibson has asked that its trading halt be lifted, and informed the market that it continued to assess its position on the bid, planning to update the market once it had determined its response.
The full text of an Aztec announcement is pasted below
Aztec Resources Ltd is pleased to announce negotiations are at an advanced stage over certain rights held by Australian Royalties Corporation Pty Limited, the original vendor of 30 per cent of the Koolan Island Iron Ore tenements.
On 19 October 2006, Aztec announced that its banking syndicate examining the provision of $100 million in finance facilities to Aztec was not in a position to finalise the facilities unless the risk of ARC exercising its repurchase right was extinguished and ARC's caveats over 30 per cent of the Koolan Island tenements were removed.
Following extensive negotiations between Aztec and ARC, Aztec is pleased to confirm that it is close to reaching agreement on commercial terms with ARC. On the basis of progress made on Friday and over the weekend, Aztec believes that those terms will be finalised and formal documentation will be able to be executed during the course of today. Aztec will make a further announcement once the arrangements with ARC have been completed and expects to be in a position to do so before the start of trading on Tuesday, 24 October 2006.
Aztec Chairperson Ian Burston said the last few days had delivered fruitful negotiations with ARC.
"Once arrangements with ARC are finalised, Aztec will then proceed to obtain credit approval for its finance facilities and deliver another positive milestone for Aztec shareholders," Mr Burston said.
Aztec is keeping the banking syndicate informed of the progress of its negotiations with ARC, to ensure credit approval can be obtained as soon as possible following completion of documentation with ARC.
Since a trading halt can only continue for a maximum of two trading days, Aztec has requested that its shares be suspended from trading as from today, Monday, 23 October 2006. This has been done to give Aztec time to complete arrangements with ARC, to prepare an announcement of the terms of those arrangements and to substantially complete the credit approval process.
In the meantime, Aztec will continue to keep the market informed of progress with these matters.
