Catalyst Metals on Tuesday announced agreement to diversify its two-State portfolio with an agreed $66 million scrip takeover of Vango Mining, which controls tenements over more than 40km along strike of the Marymia-Plutonic gold belt, 800km north-east of Perth.
The group is also in talks over a company-changing follow-up transaction to buy the nearby Plutonic gold mine from Canadian miner Superior Gold, potentially securing a major processing plant to drive their ambitions in the region.
Catalyst, 25 per cent held by Mrs Rinehart and St Barbara, already owns the producing Henty gold mine in Tasmania and has been building a tenement position over Victoria’s historic Bendigo gold centre as it eyes positions in high-grade gold fields.
The WA purchase, however, could be its important yet, particularly if the company can augment the deal by securing Plutonic and its 3-million-tonnes-a-year treatment capacity as a regional processing hub.
Catalyst managing director James Champion de Crespigny, son of Robert Champion de Crespigny, who built Australia’s biggest gold miner in Normandy Mining late last century, said the push into the Marymia-Plutonic belt was in line with the industry trend of consolidation to win scale and reduce risk.
“Investors are being clear that they see one-asset companies as carrying too much risk; they’ve been burnt too many times and want consolidation,” James Champion de Crespigny said.
“So for the industry, we think that’s the direction it is heading.
“And in this instance, the consolidation of this region appears to have a lot of synergies, and so we think there is a prize there for everyone if we get this right.”
The Marymia-Plutonic belt has already produced more than 7 million ounces of gold, with still-to-be-developed remaining resources exceeding another 7 million ounces, most of it at Plutonic.
The Vango tenements host a resource of one million ounces grading 3.3 grams a tonne, but Catalyst see the tenements as largely under-explored beneath depths of 100m.
About 73 per cent of Vango shareholders have either agreed to accept or indicated they will accept Catalyst’s 5-for-115 share offer, which values the Sydney-based explorer at 5.2¢ a share.
