Centamin rebuffs $1.9 billion takeover bid from Endeavour Mining

Egypt-focused gold miner Centamin (LON:CEY) (TSX:CEE) has rejected a $1.9 billion (£1.5 billion) all-stock takeover bid from Canada’s Endeavour Mining (TSX:EDV) revealed earlier on Tuesday, saying it did not offer enough value to company’s shareholders.

Centamin also said that the terms of the did not adequately reflect the contribution that it would make to the merged entity, adding that the company was better positioned to deliver shareholder returns than the combined entity.

Endeavour was planning to offer 0.0846 of its own shares for each Centamin share, equivalent to about 126.27 pence per share. That represents a 13% premium to the British company’s last closing price.

The Toronto-listed miner, which is ultimately seeking to gain control of Centamin’s Sukari mine in Egypt, also said the target Centamin had rejected several previous attempts to engage in talks.

“Despite repeated good faith attempts to engage with Centamin, our efforts have been frustrated by their refusal to entertain any discussions about a merger before entering into a standstill agreement,” Endeavour said. “A standstill would have the effect of precluding us from taking the Proposal to shareholders if the Proposal was not seriously considered by Centamin,” it noted.