$C1.10, 47 per cent above BHP’s most recent offer. Wyloo, founded by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, already owns 37.2 per cent stake in Noront. The company recently held discussions with BHP, with the aim of reaching a deal regarding their separate takeover bids for the Canadian company, but Luca Giacovazzi, Head of Wyloo Metals, revealed that the talks have been unsuccessful.
“We both tried to get to a transaction that fully reflected the value of the assets, but unfortunately, we couldn’t get there together,” he told The Australian Financial Review. “We’ve got a view on the value of these assets and if we don’t think BHP is going to pay that price, we’re not going to sell it. They’ll have to go back to the desk and form a view of what they think its worth, but we’ve got a very strong view of what we think its worth and that’s why we made the bid today.”
Referring to the improved offer made to Noront recently, which values the nickel miner at about $C600 million, Giacovazzi noted that he not concerned the bid was too high. He compared Noront’s assets to that of a Chalice Mining, a Perth-based commodities explorer and developer, whose value recently soared on the back of the latest estimate of the size of its reserves.
“It blows my mind that people think it’s a big price,” the chief of Wyloo Metals noted. “When you look at something like Chalice, this thing’s got three times the grade of Chalice with a huge number of tonnes already drilled out [which means the size of the reserves are better known]. It’s a no-brainer for us.”
