Rio Tinto's Nuton acquires shares in Regulus Resources

Rio Tinto venture Nuton LLC (“Nuton”) has completed an arm’s length non-brokered private placement financing with Regulus ("Regulus" or the “Company”) for a strategic investment of US$15 million.

This deal involved the issuance of 20,058,974 common shares in Regulus to Nuton at a price of CAN$1.02 per share. This gives Nuton control over 16.1% of Regulus' total outstanding common shares.

As part of the financing agreement, Nuton and Regulus entered into a collaboration agreement, which includes Nuton's right to keep its equity in Regulus if it stays above 10%, as well as the ability to nominate a director to Regulus' board of directors. The companies also agreed to establish a joint advisory committee to collaborate on exploration concepts and development opportunities at Regulus' AntaKori project in Peru. Regulus granted Nuton exclusive rights to its patented or trade secret leaching technologies for one year after the delivery of metallurgical samples from AntaKori for testing. Nuton agreed not to sell any Regulus shares, acquire more than a 19.9% stake in the company, or vote its common shares in favour of any director nominated by Regulus for a one-year period. The common shares were acquired by Nuton for investment purposes.