I've had a chance to contemplate, cogitate and ruminate about...

I've had a chance to contemplate, cogitate and ruminate about this deal for Apollo ... and I'm left looking at Bardoc. Their announcement of 27 September to pull the pin on the FID for their project development just north of Kalgoorlie has me scratching my head about the logic of the Apollo transaction. Bardoc has much more resources, including reserves, than Apollo and a much better grade (1.8g/t v 1.2g/t) too. Fair enough that Bardoc is both open pit and underground whereas Apollo is pretty much one big pit but Ramelius made a point that they think that underground is where they can increase the resources at Rebecca. If Bardoc doesn't stack up, what hope Apollo?

The reasons given by Bardoc for calling stumps are projected materials inflation, labour shortages and "reduced risk appetite amongst major institutional investors" for the foreseeable future. I reckon for the Apollo board to read that from Bardoc was enough for them to have some meaning-of-life conversations among themselves. I get that. I also understand that well funded mid-tiers like Ramelius and Silver Lake are positioned perfectly to pick the bones out of late stage explorers and early stage developers like Bardoc and Apollo. What I cannot understand is why now for Ramelius. Have they gone too early on the first shiny object they saw instead of biding their time for something that does offer that stepchange growth they have been looking for (and, sorry, but Apollo is at best slopechange growth over the next 3 or 4 years).

From another angle, I find it interesting that Bardoc cited major institutions losing their bottle as a reason for killing their project. From memory the Ramelius registry is 60% institutions, a third of which are foreign institutions (and remembering that Mark Z recently went to Denver to allure the north Americans). I would suspect that those very same institutions that were unwilling to back a one shot developer like Bardoc may be even more inclined than before to back a cash engorged, multi mine, established producer like Ramelius if it were to attempt to take full advantage of the tightening conditions. I think someone posted a newspaper article from today that suggested that for Ramelius Apollo might be just the first. Maybe that is right.