SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2016

SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY

SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY

NOTE 11 SHAREHOLDERS’ EQUITY

On June 18, 2015, the Board of Directors declared an annual return of capital distribution of $0.01 per share of common stock, payable semi-annually. The first semi-annual return of capital distribution payment of $0.005 was made on August 17, 2015 (declared in July 2015), the second payment of $0.005 was made on February 12, 2016 (declared in July 2015) and the third payment of $0.005 was made on August 29, 2016 (declared in August 2016), each for a total of $1.5 million. The fourth semi-annual return of capital distribution payment was approved by the Board in early January 2017 and was paid on February 14, 2017 to the shareholders of record on February 3, 2017. Return of capital distributions are paid to holders of the Company’s common stock. 

On October 1, 2015, the Board of Directors approved a share repurchase program authorizing the Company to purchase up to 15,000,000 shares of its common stock over a twelve-month period, with an authorized maximum of $15.0 million to be spent on the repurchases. Under the program, purchases of common stock could be made from time-to-time in the open market, subject to compliance with applicable U.S. and Canadian laws. The timing and amounts of any purchases are based on market conditions and other factors including share price, regulatory requirements and capital availability.  Further, the repurchase program could be suspended, discontinued or modified at any time, at the discretion of the Board of Directors. During the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 the Company repurchased 557,991 shares of common stock (December 31, 2015 - 1,896,442),  all of which have been cancelled, at a total cost of $0.6 million (December 31, 2015 - $1.8 million).  The share repurchase program expired on September 30, 2016.

At the Company’s annual meeting held on May 31, 2016, the holders of exchangeable shares of McEwen Mining-Minera Andes Acquisition Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company (“MAQ”), voted to amend its Articles of Incorporation to allow early redemption of all outstanding exchangeable shares for common stock of the Company.  The purpose of the early redemption was to reduce the administration costs of maintaining two stock listings and simplify the corporate structure. On July 25, 2016, the Company announced that MAQ had established a redemption date of August 23, 2016 in respect of all of its outstanding exchangeable shares and that McEwen Mining (Alberta) ULC ("McEwen (Alberta)") elected to exercise its overriding redemption call right to acquire all of the outstanding exchangeable shares (other than exchangeable shares held by the Company and its subsidiaries) on the business day immediately prior to the redemption date, being August 22, 2016.  On August 22, 2016, McEwen (Alberta) acquired all of the exchangeable shares not yet redeemed for purchase consideration of one share of the Company’s common stock per exchangeable share. Following the redemption, MAQ applied to have the exchangeable shares delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”).  During the twelve months ended December 31, 2016, 24.2 million exchangeable shares were converted into common stock (December 31, 2015 – 4.3 million).  At December 31, 2016, the Company or its subsidiaries had no outstanding exchangeable shares not exchanged and not owned (December 31, 2015 – 24.2 million).