By Ernest Scheyder
April 8 (Reuters) - A deep-sea mining firm led by former Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese will merge with Odyssey Marine Exploration in a $1 billion all-stock deal aimed at building one of the world's largest portfolios of underwater mineral deposits.
The move, announced on Wednesday, is just the latest in a slew of deals tied to the nascent deep-sea mining industry, which aims to extract critical minerals from the 70% of the planet covered by water even as the practice has sparked outcry
from environmentalists and some countries.
No deep-sea mining has taken place yet due to diplomatic, regulatory and other challenges, although Washington and other Western governments are aggressively searching for new and alternative minerals supplies in a bid to counter Beijing's market dominance.
American Ocean Minerals, which was formed earlier this year, aims to extract and then refine so-called polymetallic nodules which are strewn across huge swaths of the Pacific seabed and composed of cobalt, nickel, copper and manganese.
AOM will absorb Odyssey's assets - which include an investment in privately held Ocean Minerals and its Cook Islands exploration license - along with those of CIC Limited, which Albanese chairs and also holds a Cook Islands exploration license.
Roughly 30% of Odyssey's existing shareholders have already voted support for the deal.
AOM, which said its license areas may also contain rare earths and titanium, plans to hire a third party to refine the metals, although it may build a U.S. refinery in the future.
"What we're seeing now is a concerted, bipartisan need to find energy and minerals resources, and deep-sea mining is a key part of that," Albanese, who is AOM's chairman and who led Rio from 2007 through 2013, told Reuters.
As part of the deal, institutional investors will contribute $150 million in a private placement and $75 million in pre-public financing. Mike Rowe, the Emmy award-winning host of the reality television show "Dirty Jobs," is a major investor.
Following the deal's close, expected by August, the company will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker "AOMC."
Shares of Odyssey Marine rose 88% to $1.57 in Wednesday trading.
INTERNATIONAL FRICTION
AOM said it has asked the U.S. government for two international licenses in the Pacific's Clarion-Clipperton Zone, a step that puts it at odds with the International Seabed Authority.
U.S. President Donald Trump in January said he would speed up permitting for companies aiming to mine internationally.
The ISA — created by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not ratified — has for years been considering mining standards, but again failed to formalize them when it met last month.
The Metals Company has also asked Trump for international permits.
Citigroup and Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial services firm chaired by Brandon Lutnick, son of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, arranged the private placement. Investment bank Moelis & Co advised Odyssey.
AOM plans to hold a Monday conference call to discuss the deal.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; additional reporting by Tanay Dhumal in Bengaluru; editing by Devika Syamnath and Chris Reese)
