Good evening,

There’s an eleventh-hour rival bidder at St Barbara.

The WA gold player was quietly looking forward to the shareholder vote to sell its Leonora gold mine to Genesis Minerals for $600 million, when ASX-listed gold player Silver Lake waltzed in with a $732 million offer. (Both bidders are offering cash and scrip, in different proportions).

The interloper wants two weeks of due diligence and reckons it has the funding lined up. The board reckons the new arrival’s just fishing and is keeping its books shut.

It’s all a bit of drama, and Silver Lake’s attempts to secure due diligence should keep gold M&A watchers entertained for the coming days.

Also in listed markets, Ventia Services Group’s pre-IPO investors Apollo and CIMIC chipped off 14 per cent of their stake via a $250 million block trade that ended up getting upsized to $300 million.

It’s only the second selldown from the duo, and leaves them with 30 per cent of the company. But they’ve agreed to an escrow until after half-year results.

Elsewhere, oil giant BP landed at Alinta Energy’s remote power auction, News Corp-backed Betr was put up for sale via Barrenjoey, and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners found a buyer for its Queensland coal royalties.

Lastly, Argonaut opened a Sydney office.

Happy reading,

Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

Street Talk Editors