St Barbara Mining is the latest mid-tier producer to capitalise on the broader investor shift towards gold stocks.
Petra Capital is running a $100 million capital raising for the $372m-valued St Barbara, comprising of a two-tranche share placement with “the ability to accept overs” and a $10m share purchase plan.
Funds will be raised at 38¢ — a 17.4 per cent discount to St Barbara’s previous closing price.
The cash St Barbara receives will be funnelled towards extending the life of its Simberi mine in the gold-rich, but infrastructure-poor, country of Papua New Guinea.
St Barbara needs $58m to buy and install a new ball mill, $33m for a new wharf construction and $23m to build a new run-of-mine pad. This totals $114m.
Simberi is an open cut mine and has been part of St Barbara’s portfolio since 2012.
St Barbara believes oxide life at the project can be extended through FY2025 “and potentially into FY2026 and there is potential for a sulphide operation that can extend the life of mine by at least 10 years”.
Its share price has gained 155 per cent over the past year amid the record gold price environment, after a long run of struggling on the market.
The company last year offloaded its Leonora assets to Genesis Minerals for about $600m.
St Barbara, which is currently in a trading halt, is the latest ASX-listed gold mid-tier to raise a sizeable sum of cash.
On Thursday, Capricorn Metals raised $200m to expand its Karlawinda mine in WA’s north.
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