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As they gathered in the hometown of Australia’s
rampant gold sector for Africa Down Under, Africa’s

miners, developers and explorers asked the obvious
question; ‘When will it be our turn?’

The answer may be starting to materialise and once
again it is coming from Perth. In August, ASX-listed
Resolute Mining Ltd acquired London-listed Toro Gold

and its Mako gold mine in Senegal in a friendly takeover.
The deal represents the most significant Australian-led
transaction ever witnessed in West Africa and has left

industry watchers anticipating the next move.

t is not often that two of Australia’s most sat around the discussion table wanting
Iprominent players in the West African to exit and we pitched ideas to the share-
gold space go toe-to-toe in an open fo- holders.”
rum. Connelly – who has been involved in
While it was no boxing match, there several West African gold mergers with
was a sense that Resolute Mining Ltd public companies – said his preference
managing director John Welborn used was always to operate through a fully
the finance panel discussion at Africa public company “because it is a lot easier
Down Under to feel out former Toro non- to transact”.
executive chairman Mark Connelly. “In a public company sense, you put
Having spent $US305 million in August together ideas, you put it to the share-
to acquire Toro, primarily for the Mako holders and they have the vote, they own
gold mine in Senegal, Welborn was keen the business. From my own perspective,
to know whether more vehicles would be it will be a lot harder to do it again [pri-
choosing to house and develop assets vately], but it may happen.”
in the ilk of Mako in the private domain. Since the GFC, investors have been
Toro effectively went from inception to on edge as global markets have swung
discovery and all the way up the devel- wildly.
opment curve as an unlisted entity, even- In recent months, US-China relations,
tually bringing Mako into production in Brexit and instability in Hong Kong have
2018. done little to put investors’ minds at ease.
Given the state of capital markets, Such volatility was driving companies
could the private equity-driven model to keep their concerns in private hands
successfully executed by Toro be a solu- for longer, according to Charlie Walker,
tion to the current financing conundrum head of equity primary markets, London
facing miners? Stock Exchange.
“I think Toro represents one of the “If you go back 10 years, the amount of
unique examples of a private company private money going around [grew] year
staying private as long as it did,” Con- after year and in the first half of this year
nelly said. “We tried to list Toro twice. it is at another record high. Increasingly,
We were up against a falling gold price the conversation we are having is; do you
on one occasion which dampened the in- list the business or do you stay private?”
terest of our private equity partners and Walker said.
Toro shareholders at the time. The sec- “You see the amount of companies
ond time was we just could not get the staying private for longer, this is across
investor interest. But, it had supportive all sectors, but there is still a reality that
shareholders. at some point private markets can’t de-
“The origins of Toro were completely liver what public markets can. I certainly
different in a lot of respects – one family think that is being flushed out.”
funded the original concept of Toro from A piece of work recently completed
day one. I don’t think it is a model that will indicated that since 2017 the amount of
be replicated multiple times. There may LSE stock being used to fund acquisi-
be one or two opportunities, but let me tions around the world was on the rise.
tell you that many times as a board we “That goes to show how active the

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT OCTOBeR 2019 Page 21