ABC cuts 50 roles as Hugh Marks swings axe on digital, Q+A
Forty people have been made redundant and 10 more were told their contracts will end early at meetings on Wednesday, in what Marks described in an internal email as the ABC stepping back from 'areas that no longer align with our priorities'.
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News.com.au
21 hours ago
- News.com.au
Diggers and Dealers: Is gold M&A done or is it just heating up?
Gold miners are the toast of the town at Kalgoorlie's Diggers and Dealers, but intrigue abounds on the next M&A deal Big producers are cashed up, but wary bad M&A could ruin the gold boom Junior developers could be more attractive to mid-tiers, but now have the institutional backing to go it alone Money has flowed freely for gold producers in the past two years underpinning a long overdue period of consolidation in the Australian gold space. De Grey Mining took a scrip deal for Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) to develop its Hemi mine. Gold Road Resources (ASX:GOR) looks to be on the way out with a logical $3.7bn acquisition by its 50-50 JV partner in the Gruyere mine, Gold Fields. Andrew Forrest-backed Greatland Resources (ASX:GGP) has emerged as the owner of the Telfer gold mine after a US$475m purchase from Newmont Corporation (ASX:NEM). Westgold Resources (ASX:WGX) swallowed Karora Resources, owner of the Beta Hunt gold mine. And Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) last week formally converted its stake in Spartan Resources into a merger to grab control of the Dalgaranga gold mine and Never Never gold discovery. The low hanging fruit, the obvious stuff, appears to be gone – sans an often discussed merger between Leonora region competitors Vault Minerals (ASX:VAU) and Raleigh Finlayson's Genesis Minerals (ASX:GMD), which if investment bankers had their way would reunite the old Sons of Gwalia assets under a single roof (one owned by SOG founders the Lalor brothers' nephew Raleigh Finlayson). So, has consolidation run its course, or is the record cash generation stirred by a rising gold price simply creating a fertile environment for more to come? We checked the temperature of a host of miners across the junior and senior end of the gold market at the Diggers and Dealers conference in Kalgoorlie yesterday. Brothers in arms After last year being cheekily placed one after another, Ramelius' Mark Zeptner and Spartan's Simon Lawson, now the deputy chair of the Mt Magnet gold miner, presented together. Talking to media together, Zeptner said the combination of Dalgaranga and Mt Magnet, slated to make the company a 500,000ozpa miner by 2030, will be the company's main focus now, even with a $784 million warchest to pursue further deals. But he doesn't think miners will be put off by the high gold price if they want to deal. "There is a school of thought that you shouldn't do deals at the top of the gold price. I probably believe you do them when you can and as long as you're applying reasonable gold prices in your assumptions, you do them when you can," he said. "Otherwise, you might be waiting a long time for a gold price low. Like I said that before, so who knows whether there's ever been a bit of a wave and we have a bit of a lull? Not sure." Lawson said the momentum was there for gold M&A to continue. A company run by a former colleague of Lawson's – Darren Stralow's Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) – is known to be a potential target though a recent downgrade has reset expectations, the former Spartan boss and Northern Star geo noted. He suggested the enlarged scale of Ramelius could, for the first time, make it a more attractive acquisition target for a larger fish. "I'm not going to put words in Mark's mouth, but I think Ramelius is just going to be sitting, watching what's going on and focusing on its knitting," he said. "I still think that there's a fair bit of interest. I think maybe the combination has actually made Ramelius combined a bit of a target for bigger players." Careful what you wish for Other miners think M&A continues, with cash balances across ASX gold miners nudging $8bn and around $1.6bn added to coffers in the June quarter with prices now around US$3350/oz. Northern Star MD Stuart Tonkin thinks a pullback in gold equities, down around 20% in the past month and a half before a 3.6% bump on Monday, could be catalyst to motivate more M&A. Evolution Mining (ASX:EVN) MD Lawrie Conway, however, warned miners around being too optimistic, saying the gold price would retrace at some point. "If we get through this cycle and the cash isn't there, then you have a real risk that we lose shareholders," he said. "Our job and we continue to make sure that we have our projects well sequenced and timed, if companies can do that, if companies don't rush out and and just buy assets for the sake of growth, then that will be a really good outcome, because at some point the gold price is going to come down. "I think it's fair to say what we've said for the last 12 months – that there's a time to do deals and there's a time to make money. And right now, it's time to make money. "Our view is that there will be an asset that's for us and a good fit for us at the right time. Right now there's nothing that we're seeing in the market that fits with us." Junior junctures While the big end of town has been the focus for M&A as large producers and mid-tiers seek growth and mine lives, there are calls for more consolidation at the junior end. Even with high prices, BDO Head of Global Natural Resources Sherif Andrawes says more M&A will happen, especially with scrip becoming the chosen form of tender. "What that means is the ratio stays the same pretty much even, though both sides are high. So that works out quite nicely," he said. "What we're going to see going forward I think, is some more of that but also more of the smaller players coming through and more deals in the scrip space rather than in the cash space." " I think we'll certainly see some more mergers at the bottom end of the market and potentially for the right ones, we might see some cash deals from the bigger companies who've got lots of cash." One junior which has built its identity on M&A is Brightstar Resources (ASX:BTR), with a string of deals turning the one time penny stock into a $250m developer. It is planning to produce around 35-40,000ozpa from a tolling operation in WA's Goldfields, the result of a string of deals, with a broader 70,000ozpa+ operation to be established in a couple years once it has refurbished a processing plant near the town of Laverton. But a larger ambition exists to become a 200,000ozpa miner by the end of the decade through the development of a larger hub around the Mid West WA town of Sandstone, where the final piece of the puzzle is likely to come via a scheme deal to acquire Aurumin (ASX:AUN), taking BTR's resource base there beyond 2Moz. MD Alex Rovira thinks majors and mid-tiers will increasingly look at junior deposit owners to fuel growth – a $189m scrip bid by Capricorn Metals (ASX:CMM) for Warriedar Resources (ASX:WA8) is one example. It will also be key for companies like Brightstar to build scale and join that mid-tier class. "We've obviously been pretty strong advocates for M&A for the last two years, and we've done a number of schemes and takeovers," he said. "I think for us the journey the over the last two years has been let's get scale, let's get some projects that are naturally synergistic with each other into the same portfolio. "Let's get that critical mass so we've actually got something that can support a 200,000 ounce per annum producer." "If Brightstar was to get acquired by a mid-tier or a major, it's going to be for the growth profile that we can show." Not the endgame But becoming a pawn in an M&A endgame is not a given for junior developers, many of whom are sitting on big gains this year. With gold prices surging, juniors like Astral Resources (ASX:AAR), which owns the 1.8Moz Mandilla and Feysville projects near Kalgoorlie, are no longer easy prey. Astral was previously thought of as a logical play for Gold Fields, which owns an underfed mill at the nearby St Ives gold mine. But now, the $213m company has its own clout, boasting a share register with a rising number of institutions. That gives it the capacity to raise quick capital, a bulwark against predatory M&A because its assets have a serious pathway to development. "When you've got 5% institutional holding and you're approaching a DFS stage and a final investment decision, the market looks at you and goes, well, how are you going to raise $100 million of equity when you are primarily funded by mums and dads?" Ducler told Stockhead. "We are a very different company to that today, but similarly across that developer space, when the instos are there and you have the ability to fund your project, you can run it funding the project and building the project. "Then from an M&A perspective, if someone wants to come, they don't have the luxury of time anymore because we will be able to move towards development." Other deals are on the lips of delegates though, after The Australian floated talk of a rebuffed $400m takeover offer for New Murchison Gold (ASX:NMG) from Meeka Metals (ASX:MEK).
Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
High Court battle looms for state Labor's work-from-home push
A High Court showdown is looming over a Victorian plan to legislate a right to work from home, as legal experts warn the Allan government's move would unconstitutionally encroach on federal industrial relations powers. Premier Jacinta Allan has maintained that the government could enshrine a right for public and private sector employees to work from home two days a week via state anti-discrimination laws, but lawyers warn the move directly challenges federal workplace law. 'The advice we have is that when it comes to the federal workplace arrangements, there is the Fair Work Act and there is explicit provision in the Fair Work Act for state-based anti-discrimination laws to continue to apply,' Allan told ABC radio on Monday. 'The Fair Work Act provides us with the floor, and what we're choosing to do here in Victoria is build on that floor to protect working from home as a right.' Allan's comments put her at odds with lawyers and other legal experts who have cast deep doubt on the government's ability to legislate the right to work from home as most workplace laws are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In Victoria, the state has even fewer powers because of a 1996 Kennett government deal that handed powers to regulate employment conditions to the Commonwealth. Loading This means that unlike other states, Victoria does not even have the ability to create workplace laws for its own public sector employees. Stephen Smith, principal at ACTUS Workplace Lawyers, said Victorian legislation to enact a broad right to work from home would be a major constitutional issue.
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
High Court battle looms for state Labor's work-from-home push
A High Court showdown is looming over a Victorian plan to legislate a right to work from home, as legal experts warn the Allan government's move would unconstitutionally encroach on federal industrial relations powers. Premier Jacinta Allan has maintained that the government could enshrine a right for public and private sector employees to work from home two days a week via state anti-discrimination laws, but lawyers warn the move directly challenges federal workplace law. 'The advice we have is that when it comes to the federal workplace arrangements, there is the Fair Work Act and there is explicit provision in the Fair Work Act for state-based anti-discrimination laws to continue to apply,' Allan told ABC radio on Monday. 'The Fair Work Act provides us with the floor, and what we're choosing to do here in Victoria is build on that floor to protect working from home as a right.' Allan's comments put her at odds with lawyers and other legal experts who have cast deep doubt on the government's ability to legislate the right to work from home as most workplace laws are under the jurisdiction of the federal government. In Victoria, the state has even fewer powers because of a 1996 Kennett government deal that handed powers to regulate employment conditions to the Commonwealth. Loading This means that unlike other states, Victoria does not even have the ability to create workplace laws for its own public sector employees. Stephen Smith, principal at ACTUS Workplace Lawyers, said Victorian legislation to enact a broad right to work from home would be a major constitutional issue.
