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TORONTO – Ventana Gold Corp. (TSX: VEN.TO), a Vancouver-based company that’s developing a gold and silver project in Colombia, saw its shares soar Wednesday after it received an unsolicited all-cash takeover offer that values Ventana at $1.5 billion.

Brazilian resource company EBX said its proposed offer of $12.63 per Ventana share, 26 per cent above the public market price for the stock prior to the announcement, would be an “attractive premium” for shareholders.

But Ventana’s shares rose above that price, gaining $3.87 or 38.5 per cent to close at $13.90 with over 22 million changing hands Wednesday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

More than 14 million shares Ventana shares had already traded on the TSX by the time Ventana issued a statement acknowledging it had been approached by EBX but advising shareholders they didn’t need to take any action at this time.

“The board of Ventana has commenced the process of engaging advisers to assist it in responding to this bid,” Ventana said. “The board will make every effort to maximize value for the benefit of Ventana’s shareholders and will update its shareholders from time to time as this development progresses.”

EBX said it would make a formal offer as soon as possible and file documents with Canadian securities regulators..

The Brazilian company owned about 20 per cent of Ventana’s equity prior to the announcement through 63X Master Fund. EBX estimates it would cost $1.23 billion for it to buy the remaining shares at the offer price.

The takeover bid for the junior miner continues a trend of consolidation in the global gold industry, where bigger players try to buy promising development projects to cash in on record spot prices for bullion on world markets.

As well, many Canadian-headquartered miners operate in Central and South America, where their promising projects eventually come to the attention of local companies and investors with cash to spend.

La Bodega has several high-grade zones of gold, silver and copper and Ventana has been working on further exploration and doing engineering studies to advance toward commercial development of the resource.

On Tuesday, the company announced drill results, including two holes drilled on the recently acquired La Baja property near La Bodega.

One of the La Baja holes was reported to have a one-metre segment grading at 1,000 grams per tonne of gold and 330 grams per tonnes of silver — extraordinarily high ratings but from a very limited sample.

EBX Group is a Brazilian holding company founded by businessman Eike Batista in 1983 and headquartered in Rio de Janeiro.

EBX operates a number of subsidiary companies, including miners, power producers. shipping companies and and ports terminals that transport iron ore and other minerals to their markets.

Among other interests, EBX also controls OGX, the largest privately owned Brazilian oil and natural gas producer and the second largest Brazilian energy company after state-owned giant Petrobras.

Regards,

Don