Zinfex has received formal approval from the European Commission for the proposed merger of Zinifex and Umicore’s respective smelting and alloying assets. On December 12, 2006 Zinifex and Umicore announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to create the world’s pre-eminent zinc smelting and alloying company with 1.2 Mt of production and operations on four continents.

Zinifex’s CEO, Greig Gailey, said that, as part of the regulatory approval process the two companies had formally filed their notification to the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition of the proposed merger on January 22, 2007. “We are extremely pleased to confirm today that we have received formal clearance from the Commission for the proposed merger, so this approval process is now complete,” commented Gailey.

Both parties are continuing to work together to complete final due diligence and structuring discussions with a view to signing the binding Business Combination and Shareholders’ Agreement, by the end of the first quarter of 2007.