Nov 1 (Reuters) - Lithium Americas Corp LAC.TO LAC.N said on Monday it has offered to buy Canadian lithium miner Millennial Lithium Corp ML.V for about $400 million, seeking to out-bid Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).
The scramble for the miner comes at a time when there is surging demand for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used to power electric vehicles.
The deal could potentially provide Lithium Americas with an additional 24,000 tonnes per year of battery-quality lithium carbonate for 40 years, the company said in a statement.
Each Millennial shareholder will receive C$4.70 ($3.80) per share, payable in Lithium Americas common shares, and C$0.001 in cash. Millennial shareholders will own about 9.9% of Lithium Americas, based on the company's closing price on Friday.
Shares of Millennial rose 27% to $4.67 Monday in early trading on the Toronto Venture exchange.
The Lithium Americas offer trumped C$3.85 per share bid that CATL 300750.SZ made to Millennial in September, which in turn had outbid July's offer of C$3.60 each by Ganfeng Lithium Co Ltd
002460.SZ , one of the world's biggest producers of lithium chemicals used in electric vehicle batteries. ()
Millennial has given CATL until Nov. 16 to revise the offer to match Lithium Americas' proposal, the company said in the statement.
($1 = 1.2378 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
((Ruhi.Soni@thomsonreuters.com;))