tshipi on track for record production and profit in fy2018, page-56

Also an article in the Australian.

Gilbertson states should be ipo'd by march /April. My reading is they are pushing for march listing. There was apparently a board meeting yesterday


Jupiter Mines, the South African-focused manganese producer chaired by former BHP Billiton boss Brian Gilbertson, is close to signing off on a $1 billion refloat that could see it back on the Australian Securities Exchange as soon as March.

Mr Gilberton and his chief executive Priyank Thapliyal are in Sydney today for board meetings to discuss the next steps in the company’s plans to return to trading after it delisted from the ASX in early 2014.

If all goes to plan, the listing could be complete by March or April, Mr Gilbertson said.

It would be done through an initial public offering that would see Perth-based Jupiter’s big shareholders — who hold about 86 per cent of the stock — sell down stock equating to 15 to 20 per cent of the company.

This would make it an up to $200 million initial public offering if the market valued the company at $1bn.

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Since it delisted in 2014, when commodities prices were slumping and Jupiter’s market value plummeted to $185m, the company has built the Tshipi open pit mine - one of the world’s three biggest manganese mines and one of the most profitable.

With the $200m mine, the company debt-free and with manganese prices performing well on the back of strong steel demand, Tshipi has so far returned $260m to its shareholders.

“We have built a very fine mine,” Mr Gilbertson told The Australian.

“Our shareholders would like to see a valuation and would like to be able to trade and have liquidity.”

The challenge may be getting the big shareholders to sell, depending on the valuation that can be achieved, he said.

This week, Jupiter announced a $52m buyback that valued the company at about $900m and assumes a long-term manganese price of $US4 to $US4.25 a tonne.

Prices are now trading closer to $US6.

“Every month we are generating about $50m, and half of that goes to Jupiter’s account,” Mr Thapliyal said,

“The challenge is how will you price that, because consensus prices (for manganese) are about 50 per cent lower than where the price is right now.”

Tshipi is producing about 3.3 million tonnes of manganese a year but has capacity of 3.6 million.

Jupiter owns 49.9 per cent of Tshipi, black economic consortium Ntsimbintle mining owns 37 per cent and ASX-listed OM Holdings (OMH), whose shares are up 10-fold in the past year owns 13 per cent.

Jupiter is 86 per cent owned by a consortium of Mr Gilbertson’s investment firm Pallinghurst, Korean steelmaker Posco, mining investor AMI, private equity fund Energy and Minerals Group, Investec and Dutch national pension fund ABP.

Gina Rinehart owns about 1 per cent of Jupiter.

“This thing could be up and listed in March or April,” Mr Gilbertson said.

“It’s been listed before, it’s a simple asset, and we don’t need money.”

Hartleys, Foster Stockbroking and Aitken Murray Capital Partners have been appointed to run the IPO.