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Canadian miner swoops on WA resourcing
A Canadian mining company has acquired Western Australia’s Higginsville gold operations from Westgold Resources.
Grace Ormsby
Firm: Norton Rose Fulbright (RNC Minerals)
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Deal: Norton Rose Fulbright has advised Canadian mining company RNC Minerals on its acquisition of Higginsville’s gold operations in Western Australia.
Value: $50 million
Area: Mining, Resources, M&A
Key players: NRF’s corporate M&A partner Jeremy Wickens led the team advising RNC Minerals, with support from graduate Ellen Laughton.
Brisbane-based partners Rebecca Hoare and Gavin Scott, special counsel Troy McKelvie and Robert Murphy, and associates Emily Davies and Ellen Vincent all assisted.
Deal significance: The acquisition of the Higginsville gold operations is Canadian RNC Minerals’ second purchase in the region, Norton Rose Fulbright reported.
According to the firm, the Higginsville gold operations “is a strategic purchase” for RNC Minerals that puts the company on track to deliver a fully integrated Beta Hunt – Higginsville operation, as RNC already owns 100 per cent interest in the state’s Beta Hunt gold mine.
Norton Rose Fulbright explained the Beta Hunt golf mine is the site of the recent and significant high-grade gold discovery of the “Fathers Day Vein”.
The Jeremy Wickens-led Norton Rose Fulbright team, working from the Melbourne office, advised on all Australian aspects of the Higginsville acquisition, including assisting with sale negotiations and documentation, financing, securing of FIRB approval and due diligence over all corporate, environment and planning, tenements, native title and material contracts.
Mr Wickens said “having worked with RNC for many years, I’ve been tremendously excited about their success with Beta Hunt”.
“The Fathers Day Vein, including one of the world’s largest existing gold nugget, is the sort of discovery that really lifts the spirits of the WA mining industry,” he said, considering it to “catch” attention and imagination, while showing there are big finds out there left to be discovered.
“RNC is now capitalising on that success through the Higginsville acquisition, a large-scale transaction that included the acquisition of a producing gold mine and a huge 197 mining/exploration tenement package.”
