https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/dataroom/gascoyne-resou...

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/bu...p/news-story/c302763697cf976a518cac903c745117

Gascoyne Resources in the spotlight as deals heat up

• By BRIDGET CARTER
  DATAROOM EDITOR
  @BridgetCarterb
• 9:00PM JUNE 20, 2023

Deals among West Australian miners continues to be one of the most active areas of investment banking, and Gascoyne Resources could be the next takeover target.

DataRoom understands that Silver Lake Resources has previously run the ruler over the once troubled miner which now has strong prospects.

A major gold discovery means it has the material to justify its expensive processing plant, which was too large for the amount of ore it previously had available.

Silver Lake suffered a blow yesterday when Genesis Minerals shareholders rejected its offer and voted overwhelmingly in favour of a rival bid for the West Australian assets of St Barbara.

While the Silver Lake offer was financially more attractive, shareholders thought St Barbara and the Raleigh Finlayson-led Genesis Minerals were a better fit, with the strong management expertise of the latter creating a brighter future for St Barbara.

A deal with Genesis Minerals also provides more certainty at a time when St Barbara is at the mercy of its lenders thanks to escalating costs.

Another potential target for Silver Lake could be Pantoro, which has a $200m market value and owns the Halls Creek gold project and half of the Norseman gold project, both in Western Australia.

Gascoyne has a market value of about $153m while Silver Lake is worth $981m.

Gascoyne has the Dalgaranga gold project, 65km northwest of Mt Magnet in the Murchison district of Western Australia, not far from the operations of Silver Lake and those of Ramelius Resources, which could also take a look.

The loss-making Gascoyne has had to undergo emergency equity raisings since 2019. Macquarie Capital was previously looking for buyers after it nearly collapsed.

Yet now the company’s prospects are strong.

In May, it said it had “exceptional” high-grade results from a new phase of drilling at its Never Never gold discovery at its Dalgaranga gold project in Western Australia.

It produced a high-quality mineral resource estimate of 303,000 ounces of gold at 4.64 grams of gold per tonne of ore.

Gascoyne has been under new management since late 2021, run by former Northern Star executive Simon Lawson, who is well regarded.

Dalgaranga produced over 70,000 ounces of gold in the 2022 financial year.

The mine was placed on “care and maintenance” in November last year.