(Bloomberg) -- Lithium giant SQM partnered with Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart to buy junior miner Azure Minerals for A$1.7 billion ($1.1 billion).

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SQM and the iron ore billionaire’s Hancock Prospecting Pty. have put forward a binding cash amount of A$3.70 per share for the Perth-based miner, an offer that’s been unanimously recommended by Azure’s board. The deal is not subject to any minimum acceptance conditions. It also includes an off-market takeover offer for a cash amount of A$3.65 per share if the scheme of arrangement is not successful.

It replaces a separate binding takeover offer made by Chilean miner SQM, which had won support in October for a A$1.6 billion agreement to purchase Azure — a proposal which at the time represented a 44% premium over the company’s closing price.

Azure shares gained 2.2% in early trade Tuesday, rising to A$3.71 just above the sweetened offer price. The company had requested a trading halt Monday pending an update to the transaction.

Biggest Holders

The trajectory of the deal took a turn immediately after the announcement, with Hancock upping its stake in Azure to about 18%. She was soon joined by Mineral Resources Ltd., led by mining veteran Chris Ellison, which boosted its holdings in the lithium miner to 12%.

Read more: Billionaire Rinehart Muscles Into Another Lithium Takeover

Hancock and SQM are the two largest holders of Azure, with a collective 37.8% stake in the company.

At least two other major shareholders, Creasy Group and Delphi Group, have indicated that they intend to sell all of their shares into the new deal — a move set to hand the new SQM-Hancock joint venture another 23%. Creasy owns 40% of Azure’s promising Andover lithium project in West Australia.



The transaction also builds SQM’s presence outside of Chile, where the company’s current operating contract expires in 2030.

The arrangement with Rinehart helps get the deal over the line at a time when SQM is negotiating a new contract in the Latin American country that would see it give up a controlling stake in its operations to state-owned Codelco as part of the government’s new public-private model for lithium.

--With assistance from James Attwood and Georgina McKay.

(Updates throughout.)

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