The Western Australian gold producer’s revised bid exceeds the price of A$0.56 ($0.42) offered by Gold Road Resources to Apollo Consolidated
Apollo Consolidated is a gold exploration company focused on developing the Lake Rebecca project. (Credit: swm from FreeImages)
Ramelius Resources has sweetened its takeover bid for Apollo Consolidated, the owner of the Lake Rebecca gold project in Australia, to A$0.62 ($0.46) per share.
The revised offer implies Apollo Consolidated’s total equity value at nearly A$181m ($134.8m).
Ramelius Resources has now offered to pay A$0.34 ($0.25) in cash plus 0.1778 of its shares for each share held in Apollo Consolidated.
The offer price from the Western Australian gold producer represents a 10.7% premium to Gold Road Resources’ offer of A$0.56 ($0.42), which was announced in late October.
Ramelius Resources said that the cash portion of the offer consideration, which comes to A$99m ($73.3m), will be funded from its existing cash reserves of A$274m ($204.06m), as at 30 September 2021.
Last month, Ramelius Resources had offered a takeover bid of A$0.562 ($0.42) per share to Apollo Consolidated’s shareholders, which implies a total equity value of nearly A$163m ($122m). The two firms had also entered into a bid implementation agreement.
Unlike the offer made in October, the latest one is unconditional, said Ramelius Resources.
Apollo Consolidated’s board of directors have unanimously recommended the company’s shareholders to accept the revised offer, in the absence of a superior one.
Ramelius Resources said that it has signed binding agreements with Apollo Consolidated’s board and a significant shareholder to immediately accept the revised offer in relation to shares which they either own or control. This will result in Ramelius Resources having acquired a stake of 19.9% interest in the latter.
The Lake Rebecca gold project, which is located in Western Australia, has a current total mineral resource estimate of 29.1 million tonnes (Mt) at 1.2g/t for 1.1 million ounces of gold.
Currently, Ramelius owns and operates the Mt Magnet, Edna May, Penny, Vivien, Marda, and Tampia gold mines located in Western Australia.
In June this year, the company started ore mining at the Tampia gold mine located near Narembeen, Western Australia.