Reuters

January 26, 2009 at 10:38 AM EST

TORONTO — — Shareholders of Lundin Mining [LUN-T]approved an all-stock takeover offer from HudBay Minerals [HBM-T] Monday.

Shareholders of the Canadian base metals company voted at a meeting in favour of the friendly deal, which at Monday's prices valued Lundin at about $710-million.

HudBay's shares plunged about 40 per cent after the deal was announced in November, while a group of the company's institutional shareholders have launched a challenge to the transaction.

The Ontario Securities Commission ruled last week that HudBay must hold a meeting of its own shareholders to consider the deal, due to a massive amount of shares that HudBay will issue to pay for Lundin.

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