Time to ring the bell, page-9

Euroz Hartleys. They said they would revisit when new production numbers come out. Funnily enough they had a buy and a 45c price target last year and a $400m valuation. After watching the train wreck for a few years from the sidelines have finally jumped in after Luke Creagh joined as CEO. I presume he will be made MD as well soon. I hear a lot of people ask what difference can 1 person make? Obviously he cant change what's in the ground. What's in ground isnt the problem, its been mining and processing of that which has been the issue. Those are problems with a solution. Mike Fotios was a geo who has been great at exploration but terrible at running companies. I met him several times when he was MD at Galaxy resource upon listing. Peter Nicholson didn't have the operational background, he was was MD at a private equity resource fund for the last 20 years. That's not a boots on ground role and I think his lack of operational experience really showed. What Luke Creagh does is provide apart from the obvious actual operational experience credibility is a clean(ish) slate and the ability to raise funds if the company needed. There would be no shortage of money that would be prepared to back him should the need arise. There are mining execs who are really just people associated with mining companies, and then there are Mining Execs, who are at the peak of their game. When Bill Beaumont singles you out at the AGM and you get paid handsomely to stay on at a $8bn company fair to say shareholders should have some level of faith.

Also what should not be discounted is the consolidation in the region. In the last year and a bit we have seen:

St Barbara acquiring Bardoc Gold in a $157m deal (3moz @ 1.8g/t no plant) - note OBM is actually closer to SBM operations
Ramelius buying Apollo for $182m (1.1moz @ 1.2g/t no plant)
Genesis merging with distressed Dacian for 111m (<[email protected]/t, large plant)
Golden Road bought DGO for 308m (no resource but a lot of listed stake in gold companies)

@70m MC with 2.2Moz @ 2.7g/t with a 1.2mtpa operating plant and a massive prospective land holding there is definitely value here.

St Barbara and Genesis currently in merger talks, Genesis wants to essentially RTO it for zero premium. Its hard to see st Barbara going for that. I listened to almost all the gold producers presentations at Noosa and they all touched on consolidation in the area. Some about adding extra processing hubs. The scores are 1 acquisition each. Throw in Norton Goldfields who sit less than 100km away and the competition to be the consolidation vehicle for the region sees OBM as an enticing piece of the puzzle. What getting the Ex Northernstar COO on does is makes OBM less of a pushover if a bid does come.