Cupric Canyon Capital buys Botswana’s copper firm out of liquidation

Cupric Canyon Capital, a private equity firm backed by a unit of Barclays Plc, has bought Discovery Copper Botswana (DCB) for 343 million pula ($35 million), the appointed liquidator’s said on Friday.

DCB, a unit of Australia’s Discovery Metal Limited, was placed under provisional liquidation earlier this year after failing to pay more than 1.3 billion pula to creditors. Cupric’s takeover paves way for its Boseto Mine to resume operations.

Terry Brick, a director at Deloitte, the provisional liquidators of the mine, said his firm would seek the court’s approval of the deal to enable DCB to come out of liquidation.

Out of DCB’s $137 million in total liabilities, $103 million is owed to secured lenders, $4 million to government and $30 million to unsecured creditors.

Cupric Canyon was also one of the mining firm’s creditors, Brick said.

Cupric Canyon, through a local subsidiary Khoemacau, plans to open another copper mine near Boseto next year. Source: Share Net