LONDON, Aug. 4, 2017 /CNW/ - Rio Tinto plc ("Rio Tinto")
announced that, pursuant to a share purchase agreement between Rio
Tinto International Holdings Limited ("Rio Tinto Holdings"),
Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd and Mantos Copper (Bermuda) Limited, Rio Tinto Holdings and
Turquoise Hill have agreed to sell, respectively, 7,455,058 common
shares and 6,209,699 common shares of Mason Resources Corp. ("Mason
Shares") to Mantos Copper at a price of $0.20 per share in cash for an aggregate purchase
price of $2,732,952.
Rio Tinto Holdings is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rio
Tinto. Rio Tinto also indirectly owns approximately 50.8 per
cent of the issued and outstanding common shares of Turquoise Hill,
and is therefore deemed to have had indirect beneficial ownership
over the Mason Shares to be sold by Turquoise Hill.
Rio Tinto Holdings will dispose of an aggregate of 7,455,058
Mason Shares (representing approximately 9.58 per cent of the
outstanding Mason Shares) and Turquoise Hill will dispose of an
aggregate of 6,209,699 Mason Shares (representing approximately
7.98 per cent of the outstanding Mason Shares). The Mason
Shares to be sold by Rio Tinto Holdings and Turquoise Hill
collectively represented approximately 17.56 per cent of the
outstanding Mason Shares, and constitute all of the Mason Shares
beneficially owned (or deemed to be beneficially owned) by Rio
Tinto. After giving effect to the foregoing sale, Rio Tinto
will no longer own (or be deemed to beneficially own) any Mason
Shares.
The sale of the Mason Shares is expected to be completed within
the next seven days and is part of Rio Tinto's ongoing review of
its investment holdings.
An early warning report in respect of the above transaction will
be filed under the profile of Mason Resources on SEDAR at
http://www.sedar.com and may also be obtained by contacting
the person named below.
The head office of Mason Resources is located at Suite 1650 –
1066 West Hastings Street, Vancouver,
BC, V6E 3X1, Canada.
The Mantos Copper (Bermuda)
Limited investors are Audley Mining Advisors Limited, a special
purpose vehicle established in Guernsey, and Orion Mine Finance, a
mining-focussed investment fund based in New York. Mantos
Copper is a mining company focused on the extraction and sale of
copper. The company owns and operates two mines in northern
Chile, Mantos Blancos and
Mantoverde.
SOURCE RIO TINTO PLC