Greatland Gold, supported by Andrew Forrest, has appointed Bank of America’s equity capital markets team to manage a sharemarket listing in Australia, as per the understanding of Street Talk.
Sources from fund management informed this column that Greatland, which possesses a market capitalisation of £426 million ($800 million) on the London Stock Exchange, is planning to raise funds between $50 million to $100 million from the local exchange.
Initial steps towards the IPO are already being taken, according to the sources. However, they also stated that a non-deal roadshow might not commence for another month.
On Monday, Street Talk revealed that Bank of America (BofA) had been selected as the exclusive lead manager for the ASX listing of Cuscal Limited, a comprehensive payments company owned by MasterCard, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and major credit unions.
This news emerges amidst a wave of large-scale mergers and acquisitions in the sector and coincides with the beginning of Bank of America’s global metals, mining, and steel conference in Barcelona this week. The conference is anticipated to host chief executives from all the major companies, including Newmont and Newcrest, who are involved in a $19 billion deal, as well as Glencore and Teck Resources, currently engaged in $34 billion takeover discussions.
Interestingly, Greatland’s management visited earlier this month for discussions with fund managers. These conversations, it’s believed, largely revolved around whether Greatland would consider a bid for Newcrest’s fully-owned West Australian copper and gold mine, Telfer, should it be offloaded following the merger.
Though Newcrest and Newmont have not officially announced any asset disposals, analysts and fund managers predict that a “rationalisation” of the merged portfolio would be a logical subsequent move for the $29.4 billion merger.
