Eurasia Mining PLC (LON:EUA) shares soared Thursday after the miner revealed investment banks VTB Capital and CITIC Group will assist with “strategic options” for its Kola and Urals mining assets .
In a statement, the company said the two lenders will work on a success fee basis, meaning they are required to complete an alternative asset transaction superior to the proposals announced last month.
It noted that the interest from the banks originated from recent palladium acquisitions, namely Stillwater's around US$2bn takeover by Sibanye in 2017 and NAP's acquisition for approximately C$1bn by Impala Platinum earlier this month.
READ: Eurasia Mining believes flanks area can boost Monchetundra resource 'severalfold'
The AIM-listed firm said that VTB, an arm of Russia’s VTB Group, and CITIC, which is owned by the Chinese government, started assessing the plans even before signing their respective engagement letters.
The company pointed out: "At this time, however, there can be no guarantee that any transaction will occur and/or that the Assets will be sold."
In September, Eurasia said South African company Lesego Platinum was considering a partial acquisition of its subsidiaries and joint venture opportunities at the West Kytim and Monchetundra sites.
“The board is pleased that major banks such as CITIC and VTB Capital, the largest investment banks in China and Russia respectively, are interested in Eurasia's platinum group metals (PGM) deposits including the ones in Kola which are much improved in size following the addition of the new 'flanks' areas,” said Eurasia’s chairman Christian Schaffalitzky, referring to the application to explore another chunk of acreage submitted last month.
“Our total resource with the account of areas within the flanks contours is about 15mln ounces of PGM (mostly palladium) that we believe puts us in a completely different league of major palladium companies already in production stage.”
Shares jumped 53% to 0.72p on Thursday morning.