News

February 04, 2010

The Merger Between European Nickel And Rusina Represents The First Stage In The Emergence Of A New Mid–Tier Producer

By Charles Wyatt

The text message from Simon Purkiss, managing director of European Nickel, was short and to the point: “well we finally did it”. He was referring to the fact that Minesite carried a story way back in May 2009 which claimed that a merger between Rusina and European Nickel was imminent. Journos have a strange antenna which tells them they are onto a story and it usually activates when those at the other end of a telephone line seem to be acting out of character. In this case Rob Gregory, the managing director of Rusina and usually the most forthcoming of men, ducked and dived around when asked if a deal was underway. Not a specific deal, just a deal - it could have been with Toledo Mining or Berong Nickel, or European Nickel. There would have been logic behind any of these moves, but it was Simon Purkiss, who, by saying least, gave out the most information. So much so that back in May the story published on Minesite involved a tri-partite merger between Rusina, European Nickel and Toledo.

The sensitive reaction from Rusina’s Perth office to the story and the fact that Reg Eccles, chairman of Toledo, went out of his way to mock it, were further points in the story’s favour. Now it has come alive again, and European Nickel is offering four of its own shares for every five shares in Rusina. The premium based on the volume weighted average share price for Rusina on the ASX over the last ten days is only 15.5 per cent, but Rusina has not been too active on promotion for some time so...