Saracen Mineral Holdings Lt has announced today that the requisite majorities of its shareholders today voted overwhelmingly in favour of the proposed scheme of arrangement under which Northern Star Resources will acquire all the shares in Saracen. The deal means that Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold mines (KCGM) will change from being a Saracen/Northern Star JV to having one owner.
KCGM Operations include the Fimiston open pit (the Super Pit), Mt Charlotte underground mine and the Fimiston and Gidji processing plants, located adjacent to the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder approximately 600 km east of Perth, Western Australia. In November 2019, Saracen Mineral Holdings Ltd purchased Barrick Gold Corporation’s 50% stake in KCGM. In January 2020, Newmont Goldcorp sold its 50% share of the operations to Northern Star Resources Ltd. The new KCGM JV was now 100% Australian-owned prior to the latest development of a single owner emerging.
As an example of production rates in the Super Pit, the last reported quarter (September 2020) saw mining of 10,677,812 t of waste and 1,465,097 t of ore with contained gold of 66,603 oz. Ore production for the quarter was sourced from the Golden Pike, Morrison and Oroya Brownhill (OBH) areas of the open pit. KCGM open pit material movement increased by 29% over the previous quarter as all available open pit mining fronts were utilised for the full quarter. The majority of the material moved was from the Morrison and OBH open pits.
Saracen Managing Director Raleigh Finlayson said the merger had won exceptionally strong support from shareholders.“Our shareholders have been virtuallyunanimous in their support for our merger with Northern Star,” Finlayson said. “I would like to thank them for their huge vote of confidence in our plan to create a world-scale gold miner which will benefit from extensive synergies, economies of scale, outstanding free cash flow and one of the strongest growth profiles in the global gold mining industry. We are looking forward to implementing our strategy, which will see us target annual production of two million ounces a year exclusively in tier-1 locations.”
Saracen will now seek the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s approval of the Scheme at a hearing scheduled for 10:00 am (AWST) on 2 February 2021 (Second Court Hearing). If the Supreme Court of Western Australia approves the Scheme at the Second Court Hearing, Saracen intends to lodge the orders of the Supreme Court of Western Australia with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission on Wednesday, 3 February 2021, so that the Scheme will become effective on that date. If this occurs, Saracen shares will be suspended from trading on ASX with effect from the close of trading on Wednesday, 3 February 2021. Implementation of the Scheme is still expected to occur on Friday, 12 February 2021, subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the remaining conditions to the Scheme (including approval by the Supreme Court of Western Australia).