B2Gold to buy Australia’s Papillon resources for $570 million

Clive Johnson, CEO, B2Gold

B2Gold Corp. is buying Papillon Resources, which is based in Perth, Australia, and is focused on developing its Fekola mine project in Mali, for $570 million.

In the all-stock deal, Papillon shareholders will receive 0.661 B2Gold shares for every Papillon share, which represents a price of approximately AUS$1.72 per share.

“At B2Gold, we are excited about the merger with Papillon as it will add the high grade Fekola project to our rapid growth as a profitable gold producer,” said B2Gold president and chief executive officer Clive Johnson.

“We congratulate Papillon’s strong technical team on advancing the impressive Fekola project to a robust prefeasibility study and look forward to working together to advance the project to production.”

The two companies expect the transaction to be complete by late September, after obtaining shareholder and regulatory approval.

By Emma Crawford Hampel