Gladstone Pacific Nickel Ltd has been informed by 50.04% shareholder Queensland Nickel Resources Pty Ltd that it plans to make an unconditional cash offer for all the ordinary shares in Gladstone Pacific Nickel Ltd it does not already own.

Under the offer, shareholders will receive GBP 0.14 per share which values Gladstone Nickel at GBP9.93 million.

The Gladstone board asked shareholders to take no action in relation to the offer until a bidder's statement and target statement have been prepared. It said “It is establishing an independent board committee will be established in order to evaluate the offer from QNR.”
Queensland Nickel, owned by Australian mining investor Mr Clive Palmer, took the initial controlling stake in Gladstone Pacific in January 2010.

Mr Palmer stated that "the purpose of the takeover of GPNL was to effect the delisting of all remaining GPNL shares from the alternative investment market of the London Stock Exchange and returning the Company to a private company status."

Gladstone Pacific Nickel Limited is an Australian mining development company presently undertaking an Integrated Definitive Feasibility Study for the Gladstone Nickel Project. The Company's vision is to build a major long life nickel cobalt refinery at the deepwater Port of Gladstone, in Central Queensland, Australia, treating abundant high grade nickel laterite ores from New Caledonia and other south west Pacific islands, underpinned by beneficiated ores from its own Marlborough deposits. The Project has the potential to be one of the largest of its type in the world producing some 126,000 tonnes per annum nickel and 10,400 tonnes per annum of cobalt metal from its first two stages.