The mineral investment company has entered a trading halt pending an announcement to the market regarding the trade sale of the project.

A spokesperson for Cape Lambert told MiningNews.net that the buyer was an Asian company and that Cape Lambert was likely to receive around $150 million from the sale.

“Previously the company tried to IPO it, but [the trade sale] will achieve same if not better result,” the spokesperson said.

The company was looking to spin off the Lady Annie project in Queensland to initial public offering Q Copper in what was touted as Australia’s largest resources float of 2009.

The proposed float was originally seeking to raise a minimum of $214 million, however this was reduced by 23.1% to $164.5 million and the IPO’s closing date was extended to February 3.

Under the revised IPO, Cape Lambert would have received $137.5 million in cash and Q Copper shares for Lady Annie.

On the closing date of the IPO, Cape Lambert decided to defer the listing of Q Copper due to adverse market conditions.

At the time, Cape Lambert executive chairman Tony Sage told MiningNews.net that there was a chance the IPO may not go ahead at all, due to a new development.

“Out of the woodwork in the last couple of weeks we’ve had a couple of very interested parties on a trade-sale basis at the same price as the float, so we’ve got a couple of options now,” Sage said.

“But one thing Cape Lambert didn’t want to be associated with was a very poor opening of Q Copper, because we’re a 15 per cent stakeholder and once you have an opening like that it takes a long time for the stock to recover, so we’d rather have pulled it.”

Cape Lambert picked up the Lady Annie assets for $27 million after its previous owner, CopperCo, collapsed last year.

Q Copper was aiming to resume production at Lady Annie by July, ramping up to 20,000 tonnes per annum copper by the end of next year and 25,000tpa in 2011.

Lady Annie produced 15,066t of copper cathode between commissioning in October 2007 and the collapse of CopperCo in September 2008.

Cape Lambert has requested the trading halt end on the earlier of the start of trading on March 15 or when the announcement is released to the market.

Shares in Cape Lambert were trading at 44.5c prior to entering the trading halt.