Rare Earth Metals Inc. Completes Merger And Begins Trading Under The Symbol
Rare Earth Metals Inc., formerly East Energy Corp. (the “Company” or “Rare Earth”) (TSX.V symbol RA) is pleased to announce that its acquisition of Rare Earth Metals Inc., a private company (now known as REM Metals Corp.) (“REM”) was completed on December 16, 2009 (the “Acquisition”). REM Metals Corp. is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company. Details of the acquisition are contained in the Company’s Filing Statement dated December 4, 2009 (the “Filing Statement”), a copy of which has been filed on SEDAR and is available for review at www.sedar.com under the Company’s profile.
Under the terms of the Acquisition, former shareholders of REM have been issued one common share of the Company in exchange for every one common share of REM held. A total of 19,630,000 shares of the Company have been issued to the former REM shareholders. Certificates evidencing the common shares of the Company to which the former registered shareholders of REM entitled will be sent by registered mail by Computershare Investor Services Inc. A total of 5,700,000 of these shares are subject to an escrow agreement providing for staged releases over a period of three years. The balance of these shares are subject to certain trading restrictions providing for staged releases over a period of two years. Details of the escrow agreement and trading restrictions are contained in the Filing Statement.
In addition the Company has issued a total of 20,000,000 units (the “Units”) pursuant to the conversion of the Subscription Receipts previously issued by REM (see the Company’s news release of November 5, 2009). Each Unit consists of one common share of the Company and one-half of a common share purchase warrant, with each full warrant entitling the holder thereof to acquire one additional common share of the Company at an exercise price of $0.35 for a period of 24 months following the completion of the Acquisition. A compensation option has also been issued to PowerOne Capital Markets Limited, the agent for the Subscription Receipts placement, which entitles it to purchase up to 2,000,000 common shares of the Company at an exercise price of $0.25 per share for a period of 24 months following the completion of the Acquisition.
The Company’s initial focus will be the Clay-Howells Prospect, located near Kapuskasing in Northern Ontario. A scheduled 10,000 meter drill program will target the rare earth element (“REE”) potential of a historical iron ore resource drilled by Mattagami Mining in the late 1950’s. The carbonatite hosted massive magnetite zone bears a close resemblance to the Bayan Obo magnetite/REE Mine, located in China. Mattagami completed 28 diamond drill holes in 1958 and defined a massive magnetite body however the property has been dormant since then. Re-sampling of core by REM in August 2009 from four historic drill holes located in the Timmins Government core library revealed significant amounts of rare earth elements. The highlights of the re-sampled core included the following two holes which are 1.0 km apart. (See East Energy Corp. press release dated September 14, 2009 for a complete summary of these results)
DDH 23 – 3.46% TREO over 7.6 meters
Incl. – 4.71% TREO over 4.6 meters
DDH 20 – 1.15% TREO over 27.4 meters
(TREO includes the rare earth elements plus Yttrium expressed as oxides)
The scheduled winter drill campaign is designed to delineate the grade and size of the magnetite/REE mineralization. A number of other high priority magnetic targets are located within 2 km of the main zone and these will also be tested using a second drill.
Commented Michael Stares, CEO and President of the Company: “We are very excited to have the merger completed and we look forward to the coming New Year with the commencement of a 10,000 meter drill program on the Clay Howells Project.”
The Company will be evaluating two other projects within its portfolio including the Lackner property in northwest Ontario where grab samples from another carbonatite unit resulted in values up to 7.49% REE. The third project is the Red Wine Complex, located in west central Labrador. Recent results from sampling on its 100% owned properties include values up to 4.99% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO), 0.97% Beryllium (BeO) and 2.35% Niobium (Nb2O5) from the Mann #1 Zone and 3.24% TREO, 0.93% Be and 4.19% N2O5 from the Two Tom Lake Showing. (See East Energy press release dated November 6, 2009 for a more complete breakdown of these results). The Red Wine Properties are located 120 km northeast of Churchill Falls, Labrador and are within 40 to 60 km of an existing resource road originating at Churchill Falls.
Board of Directors and Management
In conjunction with the Acquisition Messrs. Michael Stares, Stephen Stares and Wayne Reid have been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Company (the “Board”) and Wade Dawe and Ken Cai will continue to serve on the Board. Allen Wilson has resigned as a director and Mar Bergstrom has resigned as Corporate Secretary and acting CFO. The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company is Michael Stares, the Corporate Secretary is Gordon Fretwell and the Vice President Exploration is Wayne Reid.
About Rare Earth Metals Inc.
Rare Earth Metals Inc. is a Tier 2 junior mining company formed to acquire and advance high quality REE projects close to existing infrastructure. The Company’s main flagship project is the Clay-Howells magnetite/REE Prospect which will be the focus of a detailed delineation drill program scheduled to start in January, 2010. The Company is managed by an experienced team whose main expertise is the recognition, early acquisition, funding and evaluation of quality mineral properties. The Company presently has approximately $11,700,000 in its treasury.
RARE EARTH METALS INC.
per:
“Michael R. Stares”
Michael R. Stares
President and CEO
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of this release.
This release includes certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, exploitation activities and events or developments that the Company expects are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and those actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company, Investors should review the Company’s filings that are available at www.sedar.com.