Gold miner Wilton Resources unit to make offer to purchase minority shares in Renuka

WILTON Resources Holding (WRH) will be undertaking a mandatory tender offer (MTO) to purchase the shares of PT Renuka Coalindo Tbk (Renuka) it does not already own at 250 Indonesian rupiah each, should Renuka's minority shareholders wish to sell their stake in the company, Wilton Resources Corporation announced in an exchange filing on Wednesday.

Wilton Resources Holding and Renuka are both subsidiaries of Catalist-listed gold miner, Wilton Resources Corp; Renuka is listed on the Indonesian stock exchange.

Shares in Wilton Resources Corp last traded at 2.4 Singapore cents on the Singapore bourse, down 4 per cent, or 0.1 cent on Monday, with some 1.7 million shares changing hands. The company on Wednesday afternoon requested the lifting of its trading halt after this announcement.

Following Renuka's rights issue in February, the minority shareholders owned about 232.6 million shares, representing a 1.5 per cent stake in the company.

Pursuant to the tender offer, WRH as the new controlling shareholder of Renuka, is obliged to purchase the minority shares at 250 rupiah each, or the counter's average trading price prior to the disclosure of the rights issue, whichever is higher.

The average trading price of Renuka 90 days prior to the publication of this disclosure was found to be 239.11 rupiah. Therefore, WRH has to make an offer to purchase the minority shares at 250 rupiah each.

Assuming that all the minority shareholders wish to sell their shares, the total cost for the additional shares acquisition would amount to 58.16 billion rupiah (about S$5.7 million), which will be funded via external borrowings, the group said.

In a separate announcement on Wednesday, Wilton Resources Corp also noted that no exploration activities were carried out in August with regard to the group's Ciemas gold project, located in West Java, Indonesia.