Solidcore completes buyout of remaining blocked shares

MOSCOW. Dec 22 (Interfax) - Gold mining company Solidcore (formerly Polymetal) has completed the mandatory buyout of all the company's shares accounted for in Euroclear.

In total, the company paid 288.3 million dirhams ($78.5 million) into a trust account at $2.57 per each of the 30.5 million non-treasury shares accounted for in Euroclear, it said. Compensation for treasury shares, which the company received as a result of several tranches of blocked paper exchange and held through Euroclear, was not paid.

Treasury shares do not provide voting or economic rights. Excluding these securities, the number of voting shares of Solidcore now stands at 443,146,134 units.

Following the sale of its Russian business, Solidcore remains the second largest gold producer in Kazakhstan. The largest shareholder is a consortium of Omani investors led by the government-owned Oman fund Mercury Investments International (estimated, accounting for the change in the number of treasury shares, to own 31.7%).