The marriage banns continue to be posted for more and more of WA’s junior gold miners tiddlers, Intermin Resources and MacPhersons Resources planning a $60 million all paper hook-up.
Intermin will offer one share for every 1.8227 shares in Kalgoorlie-based MacPhersons and merge via a scheme of arrangement to form Horizon Minerals.
The merger news didn’t set the market alight yesterday – Intermin shares closed up half a cent, or 3.45%, at 15 cents while MacPhersons stock was flat at 8.2 cents.
The combined group claims it will control a total gold resource of 1.15 million ounces around the Kalgoorlie-Boulder gold district across 1100 square kiometres of tenements, including MacPhersons’ 507,000oz Boorara deposit, 10km east of the Super Pit.
It will also have interests in the Nimbus silver-zinc mine near Boorara and the Richmond vanadium project in Queensland.
The merged company will be led by Intermin Managing Director Jon Price and supported by a strong Board comprising Intermin Chairman Peter Bilbe as Non-Executive Chairman and Macphersons Directors Ashok Parekh and Jeff Williams as Non-Executive Directors.
The planned marriage comes the friendly merger deal between Doray Minerals and Silver Lake Resources and the marriage of Spitfire Materials and Excelsior Gold, which are rebranding as Bardoc Gold.
Intermin’s Mr Price said it was becoming increasingly apparent junior explorers needed to consolidate to justify building standalone gold projects.
“There’s a lot more M&A activity in the space and with the likes of Bardoc Gold and the Doray-Silver Lake tie-up, as well as the larger tie-ups at the bigger end of town, that’s catalysing more discussions at the junior end where one plus one equals three,” he said.
“When you put two companies like ours together, geographically it makes a lot of sense, but what we see is it gives us a much larger resource base and the ability to get into production sooner without the need for continuous toll milling.”
Horizon plans to begin feasibility studies once the scheme of arrangement is approved and reach an investment decision on a standalone project with its own plant, to be stationed near the baseload Boorara deposit, by the end of next year.
Mr. Price, formerly the boss of Phoenix Gold, said Horizon would aim to establish a mine plan of at least five years with the potential to produce between 80,000ozpa and 100,000ozpa.
The companies said that on successful completion of the Merger, the combined entity intends to commence a feasibility study for the integrated development of the companies’ respective existing gold projects to position it to become an emerging mid-tier gold production business.
