Almonty chief says funds in place for €27m bid

The chief executive of Almonty Industries, which is proposing to bid €27 million for Dublin-listed Ormonde Mining, says his company has the resources to complete the deal.

Ormonde's board is preparing to put a €90 million funding proposal for its Spanish tungsten mine at Barruecopardo from US private equity fund Oaktree Capital, to shareholders at a meeting on May 19th.

At the same time, Almonty has made a non-binding cash proposal to pay 4 pence sterling a share for Ormonde in either cash or shares. It would fund the cash element of the deal through a bridging loan agreed.

Ormonde’s board said Almonty has produced no evidence to show that this money is place or available.

Almonty chief executive Lewis Black said on Tuesday that it has shown its own advisers, Goodbody, term sheets demonstrating that the money is available and that its advisers have in turn showed this to Ormonde's advisers, Davy.

However, Ormonde chief executive Kerr Anderson and chairman Michael Donoghue maintained that the board does not believe that the Almonty proposal is credible and the Oaktree offer is in the best interests of all shareholders.