2009
Lucara Diamond Corp.
Acquisition and $110m Financing
We acted as co-counsel to Lucara Diamond Corp. in respect of the acquisition, from De Beers Prospecting Botswana (Pty) Limited, of De Beers 70.268% interest in Boteti Exploration (Pty) Ltd. Boteti holds a 100% interest in the AK6 project, an advanced diamond development project located in the Orapa district of Botswana. Consideration for the acquisition was US$ 49 million, which amount was secured with a loan facility negotiated with an insider of the Company. We also assisted Lucara in negotiating the terms of an Irrevocable Guarantee from Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. (Geneva) made in favour of De Beers. 12,191,200 bonus shares were issued to an insider of Lucara in consideration of its facilitating the provision of the guarantee.
We subsequently assisted Lucara in its private placement of 110 million subscription receipts, issued at a price of $1.00 per subscription receipt, for gross proceeds of $110 million. Proceeds from the private placement were held in escrow pending completion of the AK6 acquisition following which the subscription receipts were converted into common shares of the Company.