Bens Creek agrees to buy rail track holding company

(Sharecast News) - North American metallurgical coal miner Bens Creek announced on Friday that its wholly-owned subsidiary Bens Creek Carbon has entered into an agreement to acquire up to 100% of the membership interests in Bens Creek Rail Holding.

The AIM-traded firm said BC Rail Holdings is currently owned by its largest shareholder, MBU Capital Group.

It said the consideration payable by Bens Creek would be up to $0.65m in cash, which would be satisfied from its existing cash resources.

The consideration proposed to be paid by Bens Creek was the same amount paid by MBU to acquire the membership interests in BC Rail Holding on 28 February last year.

BC Rail Holding owns the rail track, consisting of 25,580 tract feet of rail, for the purposes of Bens Creek flood loading coal into rail cars at the company's preparation plant and transporting it using the track.

There was currently a rail lease agreement in place between BC Rail Holding and Bens Creek Operations WV - a wholly owned subsidiary of Bens Creek - under which Bens Creek leases the tract from BC Rail Holding for an annual rental of $55,000.

Since 1 April, Bens Creek and MBU had taken "various steps" to achieve a separation between the two companies, with the proposed acquisition a continuation of that strategy.

Under the terms of the deal, Bens Creek acquired an initial 26% of the membership interests of BC Rail Holding for $0.17m in cash, payable from its cash resources.

In addition, under the agreement, Bens Creek also had the right at its sole discretion to acquire the remaining 74% of the membership interests of BC Rail Holding for a total of up to $0.48m in cash, payable by exercising those rights at any time over the next 12 months.

"We are pleased to have entered into an agreement to purchase the rail track and to have acquired an initial 26% interest in BC Rail Holding, the rail track being a further transport component now moving to being under our control," said chief executive officer Adam Wilson.

"This purchase will further separate the company from its largest shareholder, MBU, who have been supportive of the business since inception and continue to be so."

At 1224 GMT, shares in Bens Creek Group were down 4.55% at 21p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.