Bruchou & Marval act in Lundin Mining and BHP jv for FDS acquisition
Bruchou & Funes de Rioja acted as local counsel to Lundin Mining in the joint venture agreement with BHP for the joint acquisition of 100% of Filo Corporation, the company controlling the Filo del Sol project. Marval O’ Farrell & Mairal acted as counsel to BHP.
The transaction was signed on July 29 and is valued at approximately USD $3.25 billion. As part of the agreement, BHP will pay USD $690 million to Lundin for including the Josemaría project in the joint venture. Through this agreement, the two companies will establish a 50/50 joint venture to manage both the Filo del Sol (FDS) project and Lundin’s Josemaría project. BHP’s total cash outlay for the proposed transaction is estimated to be approximately USD 2.1 billion.
FDS is a major copper, silver and gold deposit located in the San Juan province of Argentina and the Atacama region of Chile. The Josemaría project is a copper mine also located in San Juan province, Argentina.
The transaction will consolidate two important copper projects in the Vicuña district. In this way, they share infrastructure and give rise to economies of scale and future expansion options. In addition, this alliance supports BHP’s strategy of acquiring early-stage copper projects and strengthens its presence in Argentina with an experienced partner such as Lundin Mining.
Lundin Mining is a Canadian mining company that produces mainly copper, zinc, gold and nickel. It has operations in Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Sweden and the United States.
BHP, based in Australia, is one of the world’s largest mining companies, with operations in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in Latin America.
Other advisory firms included Sullivan & Cromwell, Cassels Brock & Blackwell, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin, Stikeman Elliot and Blake Cassels & Graydon.
Sullivan & Cromwell’s team included partners Werner Federico Ahlers, Matthew Friestedt, Davis Wang and Alan Fishman; special counsel Matthew Brennan and associates Virginia Cueva, Andrew Brod, Rebecca Rabinowitz, Elianne Neuman Schiff and Gregg Rader in New York; partner Mark Schenkel in Palo Alto; partners Aisling O’Shea and Eric Kadel in Washington, DC; partner Adam Paris in Los Angeles; counsel Jonathon Hannah in London; and partner Michael Rosenthal and associates Justin Gibbs, Kolja Ortmann and Chiara Neirotti in Brussels.
Bruchou’s team consisted of partners Sebastián Vedoya (pictured left), Exequiel Buenaventura (pictured centre, left) and Lucila Tagliaferro (pictured centre, right), and associates Stefania Ferro, Julián Gómez Luboz and Dolores Cattaneo, Josefina Piñeiro.
Marval’s team was led by partner Leonardo G. Rodríguez (pictured right), with the participation of partners María Macarena García Mirri, Francisco Abeal, Santiago del Río, Diego Kelly, Juan M. López Mañán, Ignacio Sánchez Echagüe and Luciana Virgile, and associates Agustina Dellacasa, Ignacio M. Alonso, Gabriel A. Fortuna, Carolina Ledesma, Micol Marien Bonacich Kresich and Alejo Franco Matti.
