Raleigh Finlayson appears to be asserting himself on the mining mergers and acquisition scene, with Genesis Minerals that he now runs said to have taken a look at buying goldminer St Barbara.
However, any talks between the former Saracen boss and St Barbara are now thought to have gone cold with the deterrent being St Barbara’s PNG operations.
Finlayson departed Saracen after it merged with Northern Star in a $16bn tie-up.
He was appointed chief executive of Genesis in February, and it appears that he does not plan to stand still there.
Genesis Minerals is listed with a market value of $313m and is focused on growing its Leonora Gold Project with a vision of building a premium gold miner.
The project is based 30km south of Leonora in Western Australia and 200km north of Kalgoorlie.
It is 30km south of St Barbara’s Gwalia mine in WA’s eastern gold fields, which are mineral-rich and highly prospective, and it has had a strategy of exploration and regional acquisition over the past two to three years.
It is now targeting the development of a much larger long-life mining and processing operation with major resource expansion drilling programs and regional exploration.
St Barbara is under pressure to undertake corporate activity. Earlier there had been suggestions that Ramelius was casting its eye over the business.
The gold space is attractive now as it remains an investor safe haven amid a period of instability.
St Barbara’s share price has failed to fire and is now around $1.11, from near $5 in 2019.
Gwalia is the deepest underground gold mine in the country, making the process of extracting the metal expensive.
But management has not been rewarded by investors for its initiatives to develop the shallow areas on the mine’s edges, which will extend its life for at least a decade.
St Barbara’s PNG Simberi mine in PNG — obtained in its Allied Gold acquisition more than a decade ago — has been plagued with problems, while the $C723m acquisition of Atlantic Gold in Nova Scotia in 2019 has failed to lift its share price.
It means that St Barbara itself will be unlikely to gain investor support to embark on its own major acquisition.
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