ASANTE Gold Corporation plans to join the bidding for Newmont’s Ghana mine Akyem which the US miner deemed non-core following its acquisition of Newcrest last year.
“We expect to be part of this process,” Asante CEO Dave Anthony told Bloomberg News in an interview Tuesday. “We look at Akyem as being a mine that we’re a natural owner for.”
His company, which will face off against expected bidding from China for Akyem, will be boosted by calls from Ghana’s government for local ownership.
Asante, which owns two gold mines and six projects in Ghana, is headquartered in Vancouver but Bloomberg quoted the company as saying almost half its investors were from Ghana, including two state-owned sovereign wealth funds.
“We have a lot of government support and local financial support,” said Anthony, who added that the company is now in the process of determining its offer. “We see the opportunity to get significant support in Ghana to own it.”
Asante’s top two individual shareholders are based in the UAE. One is a wealth fund belonging to the Fujairah emirate, while the other – Emiral Resources – was founded by Boris Ivanov, who once headed the international unit of Russia’s Gazprom, said Bloomberg News.
The company also has backing from Ghana’s Minerals Income Investment Fund, a government-owned fund that previously backed Asante’s acquisition of a local Kinross Gold mine in 2022, the newswire said.
“For us, co-investing in an asset such as the Akyem mine will be a valuable addition to our portfolio, as we aim to become Africa’s biggest sovereign minerals fund,” said MIIF Chief Investment Officer Bubune Kofi Sorkpor in an email to Bloomberg News.
The Akyem sale has also drawn interest from Chinese bidders including Shandong Gold Mining Co., Zijin Mining Group Co. and Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining Co. Australian miner Perseus Mining said in February it too would consider the asset.
Akyem produced 420,000 ounces of gold a year at the end of 2022.
The sale is part of Newmont’s effort to raise $2bn in cash through divestitures in the wake of its acquisition of Newcrest Mining in November. On top of Akyem, Newmont also wants to sell four gold mines in North America and one in Australia, said Bloomberg News.
