Perseus to expand gold empire with $60m takeover

The parties have entered into a Scheme Implementation Deed which will see Perseus acquire 100 per cent of Exore.

Exore has gold and lithium projects in West Africa and Portugal. It also elected to acquire a 20 per cent joint venture interest from ASX-listed exploration company Apollo Consolidated for the Bagoe and Liberty projects in northern Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa for $US4.5 million ($6.5 million).

Perseus would take full ownership of both projects upon completion of the acquisition.

Perseus managing director and chief executive Jeff Quartermaine said the acquisition of Exore would give Perseus ownership of approximately 2000 square kilometres of geologically prospective land in northern Côte d’Ivoire, close to the company’s operating Sissingué gold mine.

The Bagoe project hosts a maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource containing 90,000 ounces of gold as an indicated mineral resource and is within trucking distance of Perseus’ Sissingué gold mine.

“Sinssingué currently has a mine life of three years from 1 July 2020, and with the acquisition of Exore’s land package, including defined mineral resources at the Bagoe project, we have the option of developing the Bagoe project into a new gold mine potentially using Sinssingué infrastructure,” Quartermaine said.

“Alternatively, [it would lead to] delineating further mineral resources that can be economically mined and trucked to our Sissingué plant for processing,” he said.

Exore managing director Justin Tremain said the company shareholders had the opportunity to benefit from Perseus’ strong development and production capabilities at a time of “near record gold prices.”

“[The proposed acquisition de-risks] the need for Exore to discover additional ounces to support a standalone operation or fund a standalone development,” he said.

This was met with a unanimous recommendation from the board of Exore, which also voted in favour of the scheme.

Perseus’ offer represents a premium of 69 per cent to Exore’s last closing share price and 78 per cent to its 20 trading day volume-weighted average price.

Perseus is a multi-mine, multi-jurisdictional explorer, developer and producer of gold with a solid track record of successfully operating in West Africa. The company has two producing gold mines in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, and another in development in Côte d’Ivoire. It is on track to deliver first gold in December.

Perseus expects to produce over 500,000 ounces of gold a year with the three mines in operation.