Reuters cited Mr Peter Jones CEO of HudBay Minerals as saying that his company planned share buyback won't distract the company from its main goals of building its presence in Manitoba and pursuing acquisitions.

Mr Jones, who pledged in March the company would try to expand through M&A before it would consider a dividend or buyback said that “HudBay is in a number of discussions regarding opportunities he hopes will help eventually turn HudBay into a Canadian mining giant in the mold of Teck Resources.”

Mr Jones, who began his second stint at the company's helm in June following a proxy battle spurred by HudBay's ill fated takeover bid for rival Lundin Mining said that the buyback would give HudBay flexibility to take advantage of "mispricings" in the stock and noted the company was not committed to taking up the full number of shares.

He said that "I think it's fair to say we're totally focused at this time on potential M&A transactions."

Mr Jones said that in June the company could seek acquisitions valued at up to CAD 1 billion and said that his longer term vision was for HudBay to branch out beyond its core zinc, copper and nickel holdings and become a player comparable to Teck, which is currently about 13 times HudBay's size.

He said that "We believe there is an opportunity in place in the very long term to build another substantive Canadian mining company, and I like to think we can have a pretty good stab at becoming that second large mining company in Canada."

Mr Jones said that HudBay may soon consider restarting the Chisel North zinc mine in Manitoba because of a recent rise in zinc prices but that the company needs to see more stability in the price before it makes the decision.

He said that the HudBay would be open to selling the asset if there was interest.

HudBay, which cash hoard of CAD 846 million surprised investors late on August 6th by unveiling its intention to implement a normal course issuer bid of up to 9% of its shares.

(Sourced from Reuters)