ARMZ pulls back from acquisition

Thursday, 17 March 2011 The $1.2 billion acquisition of emerging uranium mining company Mantra Resources by Russia's AtomRedMetZoloto (ARMZ) is in doubt following the serious events at the Fukushima nuclear power plants in Japan. ARMZ has notified Australia-based Mantra that it believes the Japanese incidents are likely to have a detrimental effect on Mantra's business. As a result, it says, it considers that the condition relating to a "material adverse change" in the 15 December implementation agreement for the deal is not capable of satisfaction. ARMZ says it intends to continue discussions with Mantra to see if the transaction can still go ahead by an alternative approach. Mantra has a portfolio of projects in southern Africa, including the Mkuju River project in southern Tanzania which has estimated mineral resources (measured, indicated and inferred) of 101.4 million pounds U₃O₈ (39,000 tU).