Street Talk can reveal that the board of WA gold miner St Barbara is expected to knock back Silver Lake’s tweaked $707 million bid and stick with a $641 million deal with its original suitor, Genesis Minerals.
According to investor sources, both suitors have put cash-and-scrip proposals on the table to buy St Barbara’s Leonora assets. So while the deal size moves around, Silver Lake’s bid was about 9 per cent higher when lobbed.
Despite that, the eleventh-hour interloper has failed to convince the target board of its ability to fund and execute a deal. No good has come out of Silver Lake’s attempts on Thursday to speed up funding and structure the deal to cut out a time-consuming independent expert report.
So for now, it looks like the bidding war that some investors have been hoping for just doesn’t have enough tinder to ignite.
