July 10, 2019 COMEX Metal inventory

[SMM Gold Flash] Northern Star Resources disclosed on 28 September that its board had unanimously rejected an unsolicited, conditional proposal from South Africa’s Gold Fields to acquire the Australian gold miner. The indicative offer, received on 14 September, comprised 0.3125 new Gold Fields shares and A$7.25 in cash per Northern Star share. It implied A$27 a share, or A$38.7 billion in equity value, at 11 September prices. Northern Star told Gold Fields on 25 September that it would not engage further on that proposal. The board said the offer undervalued its mines and exposed shareholders to additional operational and jurisdictional risk through its large share component. By 25 September, the implied value had fallen to A$25.19 a share as Gold Fields’ stock price moved. The disclosure puts consolidation of large gold portfolios back in focus, but the approach was non-binding and no transaction has been agreed.

[SMM Gold Flash] Sanu Gold reported initial cyanide leach results from selected drill samples at its Diguifara and Daina exploration properties in Guinea on 22 September. Average calculated gold recoveries were 91.2% at Diguifara and 94.0% at Daina. The company submitted 136 samples; one Diguifara result was excluded as invalid, leaving 135 valid results. These are early screening results, not recoveries from an operating plant. The results suggest that gold in the tested samples is amenable to cyanide leaching, providing an input to future processing studies. Sanu says the next stage will test representative composite samples, including leach kinetics, reagent consumption and grind response. The reported averages cannot yet establish recoveries or economics for a future mine.