EMR-backed consortium acquires Australian gold mine

The investors will pay Resolute Mining, the 100% owner, A$100 million upfront, including A$50 million in cash and A$50 million of deferred considerations via a promissory note. They have also committed to an additional A$200 million in compensation via instruments linked to the average gold price and investment outcomes of the mine. The deal is expected to close before the end of March.

The Ravenswood mine encompasses a number of operational pits in a northern Queensland. The current resource base includes 5.9 million ounces of gold, although only 1.7 million ounces are categorized as reserves, a more reliably accessible class of inventory. The site is considered to have substantial upside around efficiency improvements, with Resolute having recently reviewed potential for various extraction and processing optimizations.

"The Ravenswood acquisition creates a truly exciting opportunity to leverage the positive macro fundamentals in the gold sector and EMR's strong operational expertise," Jason Chang, CEO of EMR, said in a statement, describing the surrounding area as one of the Australia's most prospective regions for gold. "We look forward to realizing the potential Ravenswood offers to ramp up production, expand resources and reserves, and extend mine life."

This would be EMR's third mining operation in Queensland. Pervious investments include the Capricorn copper mine near Mt Isa and the Kestrel coking coal mine, the latter of which was acquired alongside Adaro Energy and Mitsui & Co. EMR, which seeks control stakes in underappreciated assets, launched its third fund last year with a target of $1.3 billion. This represents a sizeable increase on Fund II, which closed at $860 million in 2016.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Australasia
• Buyouts
• Industrials
• Australia
• EMR Capital
• Commodities
• resources