Spartan Resources managing director and chief executive Simon Lawson at the Dalgaranga gold project in WA's Murchison region. Credit: Trevor Collens/RegionalHUB
Shares in Spartan Resources continue to zoom upwards and chief Simon Lawson believes the gold developer may now be out of reach for a prospective suitor.
Spartan — formerly known as Gascoyne Resources — told the market on Tuesday its total resource inventory for Dalgaranga had lifted 47 per cent to 16.1 million tonnes, including a 91 per cent increase in the overall grade to 4.79 grams per tonne of gold.
The update catapulted shares in Spartan 23.6 per cent to $1.23 by the close of trade. Spartan was trading at about 51¢ at the start of the calendar year and as low as 10¢ during 2023.
The meteoric rise has also ballooned Spartan’s market capitalisation to more than $1.3 billion.
Mid-tier Ramelius Resources last month snapped up a 17.94 per cent stake in Spartan and said it had “no current intention to acquire control or make a takeover offer for Spartan”.
But most market observers are not convinced Ramelius, which has a $2.3b market cap, will sit on its hands.
Expectations of a takeover attempt on Spartan have helped fuel the would-be target’s rocketing share price.
However, speaking to The West Australian, Mr Lawson believes the deal ship might have now sailed.
“I just don’t know if, at a billion (dollars) plus, whether we are still in the wheelhouse of what they (Ramelius) want to do,” he said.
“They’re going to have to give away a large part of their company because they won’t do cash, well that’s my assumption.
“I would expect them to be more paper heavy, and it would be like a two-for-one, or a one-for-two type thing
Mr Lawson said Ramelius boss Mark Zeptner is a “very shrewd” operator and may have bought into Spartan as an “arbitrage opportunity” to turn a quick profit.
“Mark knows I’ve got news flow coming out, if he then rides the share price from 89¢ to 92¢ where he picked up the majority of that stake, he’s already ahead right? Like he’s already made $50, $60 million bucks.”
He said Mr Zeptner is yet to reveal his hand, but finds himself in a tricky position.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Mark. He’s done a lot of good deals, but I think he’s got himself in a bit of a jam, to be honest, because he’s got a couple operations that don’t have a mill,” Mr Lawson said.
“I think the solution that he had in mind is not really panning out, and I think Edna May is putting pressure on him, and the gold price is the only thing really stopping them from shutting that part down early.
“You’ve got ETFs that are the major sort of shareholders in Ramelius, and they won’t stay if he’s not running two operations.”
Mr Lawson said after a short break Spartan will again fire up the drilling rigs at Dalgranga, 70km north-west of Mt Magnet, later this week.
“We’ll be looking at sort of three to four rigs easily going into the second half of this year . . . and we’ve been busy in the background with a bunch of geophysical work and a bunch of air core work that has flooded some new potential targets,” he said.
“We’ll bring that to market in the next, say, week or two.”
A final investment decision to restart the mothballed Dalgaranga mine and mill was originally expected to be released imminently, however an embarrassment of riches is causing a delay.
“We did say we were going to do it sort of midway through this year, but then we found a lot more gold than we expected to which, to me, is a first world problem,” Mr Lawson said.
“I would have to say it’s probably towards the end of this year, if not early next year.
“But I think we’ve really nailed this resource update showing people that I’m not in the market to sell the company . . . we are here to pour gold bars.”
SPR Price at posting:
$1.23 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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