PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The newly formed Auctus Minerals was hoping to pull the trigger on its first project acquisition within the next six to nine months, after securing a A$130-million investment from Boston-based Denham Capital.
With the backing of Denham, Auctus was scouting Australia for investment opportunities in all commodity sectors, except for coal.
“We are looking at resource projects in Australia that are noncoal as Denham already has a relationship with a coal team. So anything outside of coal and inside of Australia we see as fair game,” Auctus MD and former Karara alumnus Stephen Murdoch told Mining Weekly Online.
Denham is already involved in the Australian coal sector through its backing of Pembroke Resources.
“We are considering a large portfolio, everything from development-ready greenfield and development-ready brownfield operations, assets on care and maintenance, as well as poor performing assets held in a company that doesn’t fit for a number of reasons. So it’s a broad portfolio we are looking at.”
Murdoch said on Tuesday that Auctus had a pipeline process in which potential acquisition targets were identified, and through ongoing review and discussions, these targets were moved up the pipeline.
While still a start-up, Auctus was hoping to mature some of its current early-stage discussions to commercial negotiations, allowing the company to secure a project or resource within the short term, and to bring that project into development and production.
“I would think that we can move on our first transaction within the next six to nine months,” Murdoch said.
In his previous incarnation, Murdoch was the CEO of Karara Mining, and was responsible for bringing the A$3.5-billion Karara iron project into production. Joining him on the Auctus management team is former Karara CFO Paul Sims, and Murdoch’s former colleague from Cape, Terry O’Connor.