Theta Gold Mines has made a play for Focus Minerals, announcing its intention to execute an off-market takeover of the company.
As part of its bid, Theta has offered Focus shareholders two of its own shares for every one Focus share, priced at approximately $0.36 per Focus share.
This represents a 44 per cent premium to the $0.25-per-share entitlement offer recently announced by Focus, which will assist the company to recommence its Coolgardie gold project in Western Australia.
It also represents a 41.2 per cent premium to Focus’ closing share price on December 8.
Focus, however, is keen to move ahead with its entitlement offer, whereby it will look to raise $45.7 million to support Coolgardie.
Theta’s takeover attempt is conditional to Focus’ entitlement offer not proceeding and Theta has speculated the entitlement offer would enable major Focus shareholder, Shandong Gold, to increase its level of control over the Australian gold explorer.
“Focus appears to have ample cash for working capital purposes and has just secured a further $US10 million ($14 million) loan on commercial terms from Shandong Gold – specifically for ‘the purposes of funding the activities contemplated by the (Coolgardie) resumption plan,” Theta stated.
“While it may indeed wish to resume gold mining operations, its plans in this regard appear unclear.”
Focus has asked for its shareholders to take no action regarding Theta’s offer as it assesses the takeover bid. The company said it was sceptical about the timing of the offer.
“The board’s current view is that: the TGM (Theta Gold Mines) intended offer is opportunistically timed, having been announced approximately one week after FML’s (Focus Minerals Limited) announcement of its entitlement offer,” Focus stated.
“(Also that) the TGM intended offer is opportunistically structured to include a condition that requires the entitlement offer not to proceed. That condition is an entirely discretionary one that TGM has elected to include as part of its offer.”
Focus aims to restart its Coolgardie project in 2022, which covers 138 square kilometres of prospective tenements on the outskirts of the Coolgardie township in the Goldfields region of Western Australia.