Ann: Quarterly Activities & Cash Flow Report - June 2022, page-37

St Barbara, Gold Road traipse around takeover discussion

Two M&A stories have dominated the first two days of Diggers and Dealers — Raleigh Finlayson’s attempt a la Superstar Billy Graham to bearhug St Barbara (ASX:SBM) into a merger with Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD) and Gold Road Resources’ (ASX:GOR)recently acquired stake in De Grey Mining (ASXEG).
Both St Barbara and Gold Road presented today, neither providing any further illumination on whether deals could be incoming.
Gold Road has been an active corporate fixture in recent times, buying DEG shareholder DGO and failing in an effort to secure junior Apollo Consolidated in a bidding war against Ramelius Resources last year.
MD Duncan Gibbs admitted the company, which owns half of the 340,000ozpa Gruyere gold mine with South Africa’s Gold Fields, is keen on an advanced exploration asset.
“We’re happy to play in kind of any of the space so we’re certainly able to look at projects in that advanced exploration, development (phase),” he said.
“You know, first prize is probably an operating asset, but everybody else is looking for those and you know, it’s generally hard to see value.”
Gibbs said he “can’t really talk about corporate activity” but was seen talking intently to Genesis owner Raleigh Finlayson today. Notably, GOR owns 6.1% of GMD target Dacian Gold (ASXCN).
“It’s a good potential segue to use that mill as the fundamental asset. So to me, it makes sense. Obviously, we’ll have to decide whether when or whatever we do with our shareholder position.”
St Barbs, meanwhile, is mulling the sale of its Simberi mine in PNG and facing questions about the Genesis merger talks.
CFO Lucas Welsh today told journalists on the sidelines of the conference he could not say anything specifically about the Genesis discussions.
“I think I will say Craig (Jetson) our CEO he’s quite supportive of consolidation in the region,” he said.
“Not just Genesis, there’ll be other companies and other opportunities we’re talking to, so there’s nothing really to update on that.”