Two more bidders join the hunt for Ravenswood

Ravenswood has about 300,000 ounces hedged at a price which is lower than the precious metal’s current figure. Picture: AFP

Two more bidders have emerged as being in the mix for the Ravenswood gold mine, which is up for sale by Golden Energy and EMR Capital for about $2bn.

Lining up to bid for the Queensland gold mine are Indonesian suitors Salim and United Tractors.

That’s in addition to Regis Resources, Gold Road Resources and Evolution Mining out of Australia taking a look, and Chinese suitors Zhaojin and Chifeng – along with some names out of Canada.

The big question is how the suitors price the asset with about 300,000 ounces of gold hedged at a price now lower than the gold price.

That may shave about $300m off the price but still, there’s plenty of competitive tension at a time that gold is at a record price and few top-quality mines of the commodity are for sale.

And EMR Capital, being a private equity firm looking to return funds to investors, would be a keen seller.

As earlier reported by DataRoom, first-round bids are due in a few weeks for the mine that generates about 200,000 ounces of gold annually.

Working on the sale are Azure Capital and UBS.

Fortescue Metals

A decision by the multibillion-dollar listed iron ore miner Fortescue Metals to launch a takeover bid is not something you see every day, but there’s logic to its proposal to buy Red Hawk Mining, because its assets are right next door.

Fortescue, run by billionaire Andrew Forrest, can extract synergies with Red Hawk Mining’s Blacksmith Iron Ore project in the Pilbara because it is next door to its Solomon Iron Ore Hub.

It’s structured in a way to get a deal done quickly – shareholders get $1.05 or $1.20 a share if its gets to 75 per cent in a move to convince major shareholders to divest their position.

Working for the $240m Red Hawk is Barrenjoey, while Fortescue is self advised.

The Todd Corp out of New Zealand owns 61 per cent and OCJ owns 21 per cent.