ANGLOGOLD Ashanti on Wednesday announced a $111m offer for Augusta Gold, a Toronto-listed business which owns gold-bearing tenements in Nevada’s Beatty District.
The deal, supported by 31.5% of Augusta Gold shareholders, will enable AngloGold Ashanti to consolidate an area which it estimates is worth 20 million ounces in reserves, excluding the Augusta properties it hopes to add.
“This acquisition reinforces the value we see in one of North America’s most prolific gold districts,” said AngloGold Ashanti CEO,Alberto Calderon, in a statement.
Augusta Gold owns Reward, a permitted, feasibility stage project, the Bullfrog deposit, and surrounding tenements, all of which are adjacent to its Beatty District claims. AngloGold is developing two greenfield developments: North Bullfrog and Arthur Gold.
“We believe that securing these properties will … improve our ability to develop the region under an integrated plan,” said Calderon.
AngloGold’s offer represents a 28% premium to Augusta Gold’s share price on Tuesday and a 37% premium to the firm’s volume-weighted average share price over 20 days prior to the announcement of the transaction. The offer values Augusta Gold at C$152m.
AngloGold will also repay $32.6m in stockholder loans owed by Augusta Gold as part of the overall deal.
“This transaction is indicative of AngloGold’s camp-scale ambitions in the Beatty District of Nevada,” said BMO Capital Markets in a report today. “We think that this gives the company some synergies with its North Bullfrog project and potential flexibility for future infrastructural needs for its large-scale Arthur project,” said Raj Ray, the bank’s analyst.
The transaction is also another example of major dealmaking activity in the gold sector over the last two to three years. AngloGold’s $2.48bn purchase of Egyptian gold miner Centamin last September was the third-largest deal of 2024,in which gold deals predominated.
Of about 90 deals in total last year, 60 were in gold with a value of nearly $20bn or two-thirds the value of all mining sector deals in 2024, according to a report by S&P Global earlier this year.
