Ann: Noosa Mining Conference - Company Presentation, page-51

On a Winsome thread @sabine posted an excerpt from a newspaper article about that company's impressive MRE update released today. The article has a number of quotes from Winsome's boss, Simon Lawson, giving out free advice to our very own Mark Zeptner. Hmmm, I'll give SL a free pass as he may have been jazzed up with adrenaline when he spoke to the newspaper reporter.

Not that I any violent disagreement with what Simon Lawsom is reported to have said, it is more that he should stick to his own lanes.

"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.”