South African Competition Tribunal Gives Gold Fields Permission to Proceed With its Proposed Acquisition of Western Areas Limite
November 22 2006 - 10:03AM
PR Newswire (US)
JOHANNESBURG, November 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Gold Fields
Limited (Gold Fields) (NYSE, JSE, DIFX: GFI) is pleased to announce
that the South African Competition Tribunal today gave Gold Fields
permission to proceed with its proposed acquisition of Western
Areas Limited and Barricks' share of the South Deep Gold Mine. Ian
Cockerill, Chief Executive Officer of Gold Fields, said: "We are
delighted that all conditions precedent have now been met and that
we can move towards the successful completion of these
transactions." "Following today's ruling we can close the
transaction with Barrick Gold through which we will acquire their
50% stake in South Deep. Western Areas shareholders can now also
accept Gold Fields' offer in terms of which we aim to acquire all
of those Western Areas shares which we do not already own," said
Cockerill. "The South Deep gold mine fits naturally with Gold
Fields' portfolio of high quality, long-life assets. It makes
commercial and operational sense for South Deep to be in the Gold
Fields stable as our expertise and experience will enable us to
extract maximum value for all stakeholders, in line with our
long-term strategy of sustainable growth," added Cockerill. Gold
Fields is one of the world's largest unhedged gold producers, with
annual gold production of approximately 4.1 million ounces from
mines in South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Venezuela, as well as a
developing mine at Cerro Corona in Peru. The Company has ore
reserves of 65 million ounces and mineral resources of 179 million
ounces. Gold Fields has its primary listing on the Johannesburg
Securities Exchange and secondary listings on the NYSE, LSE,
Euronext in Paris and Brussels, and on the Swiss Exchange. All of
Gold Fields' operations are ISO 14001 certified. DATASOURCE: Gold
Fields Limited CONTACT: Enquiries: South Africa, Willie Jacobsz,
Tel. +27-11-644-2460, Fax +27-11-484-0639, . Nerina Bodasing, Tel.
+27-11-644-2630, Fax +27-11-484-0639, . North America, Cheryl A
Martin, Tel. +1-303-796-8683, Fax +1-303-796-8293,
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