Mining financier Frank Giustra and Lithium X Energy founder Brian Paes-Braga are launching a new mining venture, Fiore Exploration Ltd. (“Fiore”).
Fiore is acquiring the Pampas El Penon project in Chile, adjacent to Yamana’s flagship El Penon mine, from Arena Minerals and SQM. As consideration for the transaction, Fiore will issue 8.65 million shares to Arena, 4.85 million shares to SQM, and assume $750,000 in property payments and $1.83 million in expenditures by July 27, 2017.
Giustra and Paes-Braga each own 18.6% of Rouge Resources, the shell company that’s becoming Fiore. Fiore plans to raise $3.12 million at 26 cents and appoint an experienced management team on closing.
Fiore sees opportunity to acquire undervalued exploration and development stage assets in the Americas, Paes-Braga told CEO.CA by phone Wednesday morning. El Penon is Yamana’s best mine, Paes-Braga said, and Fiore has acquired a strategic land position on trend and adjacent to it.
Giustra, a well known Canadian entrepreneur, was awarded the Order of British Columbia yesterday. He runs the Fiore Group in Vancouver, including Fiore Financial and Fiore Management, which invests in and advises natural resource companies. Giustra’s Domenica Fiore olive oil is internationally recognized. Fiore Exploration will be the first Fiore brand in the public markets.
Giustra has had a long track-record of building publicly traded natural resource companies, including co-founding Wheaton River Minerals, which acquired Goldcorp and later spun-out Silver Wheaton. He was also the founder of UrAsia Energy, which merged with Uranium One in 2007 in a US $5 billion deal.
Paes Braga, 28, and Giustra, 58, launched Lithium X Energy together late last year, raising roughly $5 million under 30 cents. Lithium X reached a high of $2.85 less than six months later, and trades at $1.81 at press time.
Rouge had 47,424,392 shares outstanding according to Stockwatch, for a pre-deal valuation of $12.33 million at 26 cents.
Here's a link to the news release: Rouge Resources Ltd. announces acquisition of Pampas El Peñon gold project, Chile
Author is long ROU and LIX at the time of writing and LIX is a CEO.CA advertiser.
