MAG Silver Responds to Fresnillo Decision to Withdraw "Take-Under" Bid
24 June 2009 - 1:51AM
PR Newswire (US)
VANCOUVER, Canada, June 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MAG Silver
Corp. (TSX: MAG) (NYSE-A: MVG) ("MAG") responded today to
Fresnillo's announcement that it has withdrawn its "take-under" bid
for MAG. In today's announcement Fresnillo suggested that its
decision to not proceed with its "take-under" bid was motivated by
uncertainty as to when or if the independent valuation of MAG's
shares would be completed. In MAG's view, Fresnillo's decision to
withdraw was motivated by much different considerations that
Fresnillo has not been prepared to publicly acknowledge. As
previously reported in MAG's press release of May 8, 2009, after
months of seeking to obtain from Fresnillo the critical information
that outlines the manner in which Fresnillo intends to integrate
the Juanicipio property (in which MAG owns a 44% interest) into
Fresnillo's much touted Fresnillo II regional development plan, MAG
commenced proceedings before the Ontario Securities Commission (the
"OSC"). In those proceedings, MAG sought to obtain an order
compelling Fresnillo to produce the requested documents so as to
allow MAG's independent valuator, TD Securities Inc., to complete
its independent valuation. MAG and its Independent Committee have
indicated to Fresnillo, to staff of the OSC and to the OSC itself
many times that MAG wanted the independent valuation completed as
quickly as possible. It has been enormously frustrating for MAG's
Board and Independent Committee to have had their good faith
efforts stonewalled and rebuffed by Fresnillo. Rather than
cooperating with the independent valuation process, Fresnillo
instead attempted to subvert the process by proposing to provide
only a narrow subset of information relating to a fictitious
stand-alone development scenario that effectively ignores the
manner in which the very significant existing Fresnillo-owned
infrastructure immediately adjacent to the Juanicipio property and
resulting coordinated development will benefit the development of
the Juanicipio property. In the view of MAG's Board and its
Independent Committee, Fresnillo's unwillingness to provide the
requested information was motivated by a desire to withhold from
the independent valuator critical information that would readily
demonstrate the serious financial inadequacy of Fresnillo's
proposed cash offer price of US$4.54 per share. That price
represented a discount to the closing market price of MAG's shares
on the trading day prior to announcement of the Fresnillo offer and
also represented a discount to the closing price of MAG's shares on
the NYSE Amex Exchange on June 19, 2009, the last trading day prior
to Fresnillo's withdrawal. So what motivated Fresnillo to announce
today that after almost seven months, it is throwing in the towel?
On Thursday, June 18, 2009, the OSC issued an order that compels
Fresnillo to provide to MAG extensive discovery of documents and
e-mail records that are germane to Fresnillo's repeated assertions
that the critical documents described above do not exist. MAG has
stated repeatedly that it believes those assertions are wholly
inaccurate and that, in fact, Fresnillo is in possession or control
of numerous documents that demonstrate the very substantial
economic benefits to both MAG and Fresnillo of incorporating the
Juanicipio property into the Fresnillo II regional development
plan. Rather than cooperate with the discovery order issued by the
OSC, Fresnillo chose to walk away from its announced offer.
Commented Dan MacInnis, MAG's CEO: "We were surprised by
Fresnillo's announcement. For many months we have told Fresnillo
that our Board would be happy to recommend to our shareholders an
offer that represents fair value for our shareholders. We also have
repeatedly indicated that a cornerstone for that determination is
an independent valuation that properly considers the manner in
which our world class asset actually will be developed, utilizing
the vast existing infrastructure in the Fresnillo area.
Unfortunately, Fresnillo flat out refused to give the independent
valuator access to the highly relevant information." Continued Mr.
MacInnis: "This has been a challenging episode in the life of our
company. Fresnillo bought almost 20% of our shares to give it a
tactical advantage in making its offer, but then refused to comply
with our good faith informational requests tied to the independent
valuation that the law required us to commission to safeguard the
interests of MAG's minority shareholders. Fresnillo has put our
Board, our Independent Committee and our minority shareholders
through the wringer and then walked away when ordered by the OSC to
comply with our request for discovery relating to the critical
missing information." The future looks bright for MAG's
shareholders. On the trading day prior to the date Fresnillo
announced its offer, MAG's shares closed at a price of $5.91
(US$4.75) and the spot price of silver was US$10.30 per ounce.
Since the announcement date, the silver price has increased by
approximately 53%, and the shares of a number of other Canadian
listed silver exploration/development companies have increased by
an average of approximately 160%.(1) In contrast, during the same
period, the shares of MAG are only approximately 12% higher. MAG's
board believes that this discrepancy is largely attributable to the
capping effect of the Fresnillo offer. Commented Mr. MacInnis: "We
are hopeful that our shareholders can now benefit from the silver
price rally that has occurred over the last six to seven months. We
intend to commence discussions with Fresnillo regarding the best
way to move forward with the development of our jointly owned world
class Juanicipio silver project. MAG also intends to intensify its
exploration activities on its promising portfolio of Mexican
exploration properties and to consider a number of other business
development initiatives that were put on hold in order to deal with
the Fresnillo offer . We believe there are substantial value
creation opportunities ahead for our shareholders and now is the
time to capture them, free from the distractions of the Fresnillo
offer." On behalf of the Board of MAG SILVER CORP. "Dan MacInnis"
CEO & Director (1) Trading data compares closing prices on the
TSX/TSX-V on December 1, 2008 to closing prices on June 19, 2009.
Companies included in this comparison are Minco Silver Corporation,
Aquiline Resources Inc., Orko Silver Corp., ECU Silver Mining Inc.,
US Silver Corporation, Bear Creek Mining Corporation and Sabina
Silver Corporation; trading and silver prices obtained from
Bloomberg. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor the New York
Stock Exchange Amex US LLC has reviewed or accepted responsibility
for the accuracy or adequacy of this news release, which has been
prepared by management. This release includes certain statements
that may be deemed to be "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of the US Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
All statements in this release, other than statements of historical
facts are forward looking statements, including statements that
address future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration
drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments.
Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by
the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue",
"estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "predict",
"potential", "targeting", "intend", "could", "might", "should",
"believe" and similar expressions. These statements involve known
and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause
actual results or events to differ materially from those
anticipated in such forward-looking statements . Although MAG
believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking
statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are
not guarantees of future performance and actual results or
developments may differ materially from those in the
forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results
to differ materially from those in forward- looking statements
include, but are not limited to, changes in commodities prices,
changes in mineral production performance, exploitation and
exploration successes, continued availability of capital and
financing, and general economic, market or business conditions,
political risk, currency risk and capital cost inflation. In
addition, forward-looking statements are subject to various risks,
including that data is incomplete and considerable additional work
will be required to complete further evaluation, including but not
limited to drilling, engineering and socio- economic studies and
investment. The reader is referred to the Company's filings with
the SEC and Canadian securities regulators for disclosure regarding
these and other risk factors. There is no certainty that any
forward looking statement will come to pass and investors should
not place undue reliance upon forward-looking statements.
Cautionary Note to U.S. Investors: The U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission permits U.S. mining companies, in their filings with the
SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can
economically and legally extract or produce. We use certain terms
in this press release, such as "Inferred resources," that the SEC
guidelines prohibit U.S. registered companies from including in
their filings with the SEC. Please Note: Investors are urged to
consider closely the disclosures in MAG's annual and quarterly
reports and other public filings, accessible through the Internet
at http://www.sedar.com/ and
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html
http://www.sec.gov/EDGAR. For further information: on behalf of MAG
Silver Corp. - Gordon Neal, VP Corp. Development, Website:
http://www.magsilver.com/, Phone: +1-(604)-630-1399, Toll free:
+1-(866)-630-1399, Email: , Fax: +1-(604)-484-4710 DATASOURCE: MAG
Silver Corp CONTACT: For further information: on behalf of MAG
Silver Corp. - Gordon Neal, VP Corp. Development, Website:
http://www.magsilver.com/, Phone: +1-(604)-630-1399, Toll free:
+1-(866)-630-1399, Email: , Fax: +1-(604)-484-4710
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