tradining halt - acquisition & equity raising, page-30

Northern Star trades get folk talking

JOHN DURIE THE AUSTRALIAN JANUARY 23, 2014 12:31PM

BILL Beament and his team at Northern Star, on the back of a huge run in their stock price, are busy buying up Australian gold assets jettisoned by Canadian giant Barrick.

The company, with a market value of $424 million, is in the process of a $100m placement underwritten by RBC at 86c a share.

The stock closed yesterday at 99c but big trades on Tuesday, when the stock closed at $1.01 share, have some folk talking.

Among the 8.6 million shares that changed hands that day was a line of four million by Hartley Poynton at 95 cents a share.

That was on a day when the average price paid was just over $1 a share so you would have to say whoever was trading was determined, as they say.

Barrick has made clear it wants to clean up its Australian portfolio and Beament's team is helping itself to the loot with $100 million worth of acquisitions. On top of the Plutonic gold mine late last year, today it has snapped up Barrick's 51 per cent of the East Kundana mine and 100 per cent of Kanowna Belle.

Northern Star will now become the fifth-largest ASX-listed gold miner.

The stock has run from 62 cents early last month to a high of just over $1 so you can understand why some wanted to take some money off the table.

But the timing ahead of today's deal was either inspired, lucky or unlucky, depending on how you view the story from here.

Northern Star declined comment when approached earlier today.