Silver Lake upped its bid for St Barbara’s Leonora assets last week, but it seems the St Barbara/Genesis deal is still on track.
In a recent ASX statement, St Barbara said the board continues to unanimously recommend that St Barbara shareholders vote in favour of the Genesis binding transaction.
St Barbara said there was “no material improvement in Silver Lake proposal for Leonora, which remains highly conditional”.
“Silver Lake has provided no evidence that there would be sufficient support from its shareholders to approve a transaction,” St Barbara said.
“Silver Lake has not provided any reasonable or quantitative assumptions which would allow St Barbara to assess whether the proposed offer is supported by a genuine Gwalia business case and can be validated by due diligence.
“Providing Silver Lake with access to due diligence would potentially expose St Barbara to a termination of the binding transaction agreement with Genesis.”
St Barbara’s Leonora operation is located in Western Australia and includes the Gwalia underground mine, the cornerstone of the operation.
Gwalia is the deepest underground trucking mine in the country, with a nominal capacity of 1.2 million tonnes a year.
Silver Lake has increased its bid several times in the past couple of months, but St Barbara has maintained its position that it will support Genesis in the agreement.
“The binding Genesis transaction is fully and definitively documented, fully funded by a committed $400 million capital raising, not subject to due diligence, supported by a $25 million deposit and has received indications of support from 49 per cent of Genesis’ register,” St Barbara chair Kerry Gleeson said.