Very messy from what the money for mine lads were saying.Maybe a...

Very messy from what the money for mine lads were saying.

Maybe a bit of historical context: Back in 2021 Spartan (then named Gascoyne) was in the process of pulling the almost unheard of stunt of successfully getting itself out of administration (DOCA) - people seem to forget the remarkable achievement of the board and management of that time - and was attempting to address the lack of feedstock for its big Dalgaranga mill. Among other efforts they were drilling at Sly Fox but SF was not the Never Never they desperately needed. So they bid to take over Firefly which was boasting of ample resources on its nearby and under-explored Yalgoo tenements. At that time the then-named Gascoyne was badly wounded but had a big near-new efficient low-cost mill. However for whatever reason neither the Peter Cook led Westgold board or the Bob Vassie led Ramelius board seemed interested until very late in the Gascoyne Firefly process Westgold lobbed in an offer for only Gascoyne (final bid was for 3 WGX shares for 11 GCY shares). The bid was conditional on Gascoyne not closing the deal with Firefly.

However in the final wash it turned out that there was a sort of poison pill in the Gascoyne Firefly deal blocking Gascoyne from reneging (a bit fuzzy on the detail here) and effectively killing the Westgold counter-bid. At the time a number of Gascoyne shareholders - who to be fair had already endured years of torment - argued that the Gascoyne board had once again cost them money. Funny how life works out as any of the GCY holders who have held onto those shares are now about 20% better off than if they had swapped those shares for WGX shares. At Westgold also expressed rage that they had been thwarted - oh how the worm has turned (and my own view is that it was largely their fault as they had been far too slow to move to take over a company like Gascoyne that was on full tilt - another poor decision by Peter Cook in my humble opinion).

History shows that an opportunistic Firefly MD in Simon Lawson took advantage of the turmoil at Gascoyne to emerge as MD of the combined unit, got a break by having significant success at his first exploration effort, and then through a mix of luck, competence and determination managed to save Spartan in part by building a m&a moat around its share registry with not one but two blocking shareholders in Tembo and the Balaton Group. My own view is that either or both Westgold or Ramelius would have liked to have had a go at buying Spartan but are blocked by those two SPR holders who must see continued capital gains flowing from Never Never et al.

So with Spartan effectively locked away the two Murchison bulls are left to fight over what looks second best. I still cannot see much synergy between Westgold's assets and the Ramelius hub at Mt Magnet, maybe there might be some between Westgold and ex-Musgrave assets now owned by Ramelius. Matty from MOM ran through four or five tiddlers in the Murchison area that maybe Westgold (or Ramelius) might go after but to me they almost seem immaterial. Ramelius taking over Westgold would give it a replacement for Edna May and the bulk for higher multiples so there is that.

So for me the obvious way to generate an extra 150kozpa though m&a activity is for either Ramelius or Westgold to do a deal with both Tembo and the Palaton Group to get the Dalgaranga mill back up and into full production sooner rather than later. I continue to think that at a time of record high gold prices and record construction costs it was a mistake by Spartan not to expedite the restart of their mill but instead to continue with what increasingly looks like vanity drilling campaigns - Spartan does not need two Never Nevers to be successful and may not even have two Never Nevers - as the boss of Warriedar points out success in gold exploration is very much the exception.