B2Gold to buy Sabina Gold & Silver in $824 million deal

(Reuters) -B2Gold Corp will acquire Sabina Gold & Silver Corp in a deal valued at C$1.1 billion ($823.66 million), the company said on Monday, in a move that is likely to boost the Canadian gold miner's portfolio.

Shares of B2Gold were down 3.45% at C$3.50, while Sabina shares rose 11.4% at C$1.76.

This is the Vancouver-based company's second acquisition within a year, after it took Oklo Resources Ltd into its fold to gain access to the Australia-based firm's prospective mining assets in Mali, West Africa.

B2Gold has been vocal recently about their desire to add a growth project and the (Sabina) deal appears to be a good fit, brokerage TD Securities said in a note.

As part of the deal, expected to close in second quarter of 2023, B2Gold will also acquire Sabina's untapped mineral-heavy Back River Gold district located in Nunavut, Canada.

"The Back River Gold District has multiple high-potential mineralized zones, which remain open, and we are confident that the district has strong untapped upside with numerous avenues for resource growth," B2Gold Chief Executive Officer Clive Johnson said in a statement.

Dealmaking, which had largely been dormant in the gold sector in recent years, has picked up in the last few months as companies look to bolster shrinking gold reserves to boost growth and take advantage of rising gold prices.

Last week, world's biggest gold producer Newmont Corp made a $16.9 billion bid for Australia's Newcrest Mining Ltd. In November, Canada's Yamana Gold agreed to a $4.8 billion takeover bid from Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd and Pan American Silver Corp.

B2Gold was founded in 2007 and has operations in Mali, Philippines, Namibia, Colombia, Finland and Uzbekistan. It will pay C$1.87 per Sabina share, which represents an 18% premium to Sabina's last close.

($1 = 1.3355 Canadian dollars)

($1 = 1.4386 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Ankit Kumar; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Shailesh Kuber)