On October 1, 2015, First Majestic Silver Corp. acquired SilverCrest Mines Inc., a silver mining company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NYSE MKT through a plan of arrangement. Pursuant to the transaction, First Majestic acquired all of the issued and outstanding common shares of SilverCrest Mines in exchange for common shares of First Majestic at a ratio of 0.2769 common shares of First Majestic and $0.0001 in cash for each common share of SilverCrest Mines. Options of SilverCrest Mines were exchanged for replacement options of First Majestic.
Shareholders and optionholders of SilverCrest Mines also received equivalent securities of SilverCrest Metals Inc., a spin-out vehicle which received certain non-core assets of SilverCrest Mines at closing. First Majestic also received shares of SilverCrest Metals under the transaction and on closing held 9.9 per cent of the outstanding shares of SilverCrest Metals.
Based on the closing price of First Majestic’s common shares on September 30, 2015, the last trading date prior to closing of the transaction, the common shares of First Majestic issued under the transaction were valued at approximately $141 million.
First Majestic is a producing silver company with six active producing mines in México. The shares of First Majestic are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “FR” and on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “AG.”
First Majestic was advised in Canada by McCullough O’Connor Irwin LLP with a team led by James Beeby that included Farzad Forooghian, Laura Webb and Katie Blundy (securities and M&A) and Bahar Hafizi (banking). Mexican counsel to First Majestic was Fernando Todd Dip of Todd y Asociados, S.C. For US securities matters, First Majestic was represented by Stewart Muglich of Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP.
SilverCrest Mines was advised in Canada by Koffman Kalef LLP with a team led by Bernard Poznanski, that included Wendy Lee, Thomas Wachowski and Jennifer Wriley (securities and M&A), David Pedlow (tax), Jasmin Ahmad (litigation), Jim Alam (banking) and Mark Wong (competition law). Mexican counsel to SilverCrest Mines was Abraham Urias of Urias Romero y Asociados, S.C. In the US, SilverCrest Mines was represented by Kenneth Sam (securities) and John Hollinrake (tax) of Dorsey & Whitney LLP.