Greatland Gold prepares for listing on ASX

Greatland Gold chief executive Shaun Day, left, and chairman Mark Barnaba.

Virgin Australia and GemLife are not the only companies hitting the IPO runway, with Greatland Gold also preparing investors for its ASX listing next month.

Greatland’s move to float in Australia has been a long time coming, but activity is starting to ramp up, with term sheets out to Australian institutional fund managers, which are now considering whether to buy shares, and its prospectus lodged.

The group, which is already listed in the United Kingdom, purchased the Telfer Gold Mine and the remaining 70 per cent interest in the Havieron gold project it doesn’t already own from Newmont last year for $US475m.

Greatland, with pre-emptive rights, was always known to be extremely keen to buy the assets and thought to be the most likely candidate – the question was always how it would fund a deal.

Telfer produces copper and gold and is the largest processing facility in the Paterson province in Western Australia.

The valuable Havieron processing facility is 45km away.

Greatland Gold is already listed in the UK with a £1.8bn ($3.75bn) market value, and the indicative market value when listed in Australia is $3.4bn, based on shares being sold at about $5.08 each, calculated based on the average trading price in the UK.

Working as advisers on the deal are Barrenjoey, Merrill Lynch Equities and Canaccord Genuity, along with co-lead managers Argonaut Securities and Sternship Advisers.

While the group will launch an initial public offering to raise $50m here, it has a separate offer afoot to secure $14m in the UK.

The offer price will be determined through the institutional offer book build, which will open on June 16 and close on June 17.

Shares are expected to start trading on the ASX on June 24.