AUSTRALIA’S Perseus Mining is to make an all-cash offer for Orecorp trumping an earlier share and cash offer by Silvercorp Mining.
Jeff Quartermaine, MD of Perseus said on Monday the offer was “demonstrably superior to the Silvercorp takeover in terms of price, based on recent Silvercorp trading, and in terms of consideration certainty, being an all cash”.
OreCorp owns the Nyanzaga Gold Project in Tanzania. The project has reported probable ore reserves of some 40.08 million tons grading at 2.02 grams per tons for 2.60 million ounces of gold.
In November, Perseus bought a 19.9% stake in gold developer OreCorp which is enough to block Silvercorp’s offer as a 75% majority of eligible shareholders in OreCorp is required. Sivercorp has a 15% stake in OreCorp it can’t vote.
Perseus’s offer is A$0.55 per OreCorp share equal to A$257.95m. This compares to Silvercorp’s December offer of 0.0967 common shares of Silvercorp and A$0.19 cash per OreCorp share. Shares in Orecorp gained 4.72% on the Australian Securities Exchange to trade at A$0.56 per share. The stock is 26% higher over the last 52 weeks.
Perseus said its offer, which was conditional on acquiring 50.1% of OreCorp ordinary shares, represented a 4% premium to the implied Silvercorp offer. Perseus urged Orecorp shareholders to take no action until its own offer was formalised.
Quartermaine said that if the acquisition was completed, Perseus would have three operating mines producing gold at a rate of over 535,000 ounces per year in the 2023 financial year, as well as two projects in development.
Perseus’s growth trajectory has been impressive under Quartermaine, but his first real setback occurred last year when he said it would defer an investment decision on the Meyas Sand Gold Project in Sudan following the outbreak of hostilities in the North African country.
Perseus took control of Meyas Sand in February 2023 after buying the shares of Toronto-listed Orca Mining for A$230m. The project’s Block 14 is scoped to produce 228,000 ounces of gold a year for the first seven years of a 13.5 life of mine.
Shares in Perseus gained 2.5% on the ASX.
