IAMGOLD Corp. on Aug. 14 said it acquired 27,777,777 shares of TomaGold Corp., representing an around 19.98% interest in the latter.

The company purchased TomaGold shares at 9 U.S. cents apiece for a total of US$2.5 million.

The companies jointly own the Monster Lake gold project in Quebec on a 50/50 basis. IAMGOLD acts as the project operator and holds option to increase its stake to 75% by completing additional exploration expenditures by Jan. 1, 2022.