JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The provisional liquidators for struggling gold company Pamodzi Gold will allow parties to submit bids for the firm’s East Rand operations until June 19.

The closing date for bids for the junior miner’s two other operations – the Free State assets and Orkney mine – closed on Wednesday, and Friday, respectively.

Provisional liquidator SBT Trust’s Enver Motala told Mining Weekly Online that three firms had submitted offers for the Free State operations, including gold producer Harmony Gold, Virgil Mining, as well as an unnamed mining company with local operations.

Motala said that a successful bidder for the Free State operations was likely to be announced later this week.

Bidders for the Orkney operations included gold and uranium miner Simmer & Jack, JIC Mining, Zebra Mining, as well as the unnamed bidder for the Free State operations.

The unnamed bidder had also indicated its interest in the East Rand operation by placing a bid for all three operations.

The East Rand operations consist of the Modderfontein, Grootvlei and Nigel shallow operations. Together, the operations represented a measured and indicated resource base in excess of 4,8-million ounces of gold.

The operations comprised a dedicated water pumping shaft and seven producing underground shafts with significant development potential, and a recently refurbished processing plant with a design capacity of 195 000 t/m.

The SBT Trust said in an advertisement that potential purchasers selected to participate in the process would be required to sign a confidentiality escrow undertaking, and would need to deposit R1-million into its attorneys trust account. The deposit would not be refunded if the potential purchaser should withdraw from the sales process.

Expressions of interest must be submitted by no later than end of business on June 19.

Pamodzi Gold’s operations were placed under provisional liquidation after it failed to borrow more funds. SBT Trust is now selling the company’s mines to generate cash to pay its creditors and staff.

Last week, Harmony Gold submitted a bid for the Free State operations. Spokesperson Marian van der Walt stated that these assets offered several logical synergies with its own operations in that province.

She noted that not only would an acquisition of these assets offer Harmony the opportunity for water pumping, ventilation, tailings disposal and processing at the Pamodzi plants, it would also give Harmony the opportunity to add to its gold grade portfolio.

Meanwhile, South African investment firm Sekunjalo Holdings had also indicated its interest in making a bid for the entire company, however, Motala said that no bid had been received as yet.

The company’s nonexecutive director Mo Kajee told Mining Weekly Online last week that Sekunjalo, along with Middle East investors, had made an offer for Pamodzi, which had been referred back to the company because certain technical issues.

The Sekunjalo consortium has put up a fund of $500-million and were specifically looking to invest in the resources sector in South Africa.

However, Motala said on Monday that he was “concerned” about the Sekunjalo bid, as the company had not been involved in the bidding process through the provisional liquidators.

The consortium had indicated that the bid would be presented on Wednesday, however, Motala pointed out that the bidding deadline for the Free State and Orkney operations had already passed.

“It puts us in a very difficult situation,” said Motala. “Had they even put in a letter to say that that they haven’t met the liquidator conditions yet, but here is our bid subject to conditions that have to be matched, then at least one leg would have been in the door.”

With a “serious” bidder such as Harmony in the running for one of the operations, Motala said that SBT Trust would have to make some tough decisions with regard to how it would sell Pamodzi’s assets.

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