New World Drama Heats Up as CAML Lifts Bid

AIC Mines lines up $125m+ to expand Eloise, Magnetic secures Lady Julie native title agreement

June 20, 2025

The Pre-Start

  • Magnetic has announced a native title agreement with the Wangkatja Tjungula Aboriginal Corporation over the development of Lady Julie (MAU)

  • Black Cat shared a processing update, with Westgold agreeing to toll treatment an extra 40kt over the original arrangement. Tim Mason has been appointed COO (BC8)

  • AIC Mines awarded a key contract for the Eloise plant expansion to GR (A1M) Details on capital raising below

  • Dreadnought shared Star of Mangaroon drilling, with results outside the resource used in the Jan 2025 scoping study expected to extend the resource (DRE)

  • Bowen Coking Coal achieved 2025 production targets a month early, while outlining plans to “explore a range of strategic & financial sources to fund the owner-operator transition plan” (BCB)

  • Saturn released assays from Apollo Hill, including a hit of 16m @ 6.35g/t from 56m (STN)

  • New Murchison is in halt pending an announcement relating to project approvals (NMG)

  • Unico Silver shared infill results at La Negra, hitting 28m @ 507g/t Ag from 33m (USL)

High Grade It

  • Rio Tinto will pay $214m to settle a long-running class action brought by US investors who claimed losses caused by the mining group’s management of Oyu Tolgoi (AFR)

  • Platinum extended its rally to hit the highest level in over a decade, with gains underpinned by a spike in demand & market deficit expectations (Bloomberg)

  • China's iron ore imports are on track in June for their strongest month this year, showing a resilience that isn't being mirrored in the sluggish steel sector (Reuters)

  • China’s ‘aggressive’ steel cuts have shocked iron ore bears, with steel output down 7% last month, a 7-year low for May (AFR)

  • JX Advanced Metals plans to cut refined copper production by tens of thousands of tons due to tight supplies of concentrate (Bloomberg)

  • Barrick’s Malian saga soon faces its next hurdle in the renewal of a key license, after the state temporarily took over Loulo-Gounkoto this week (Mining.com)

  • A group of Indonesian nickel smelters with low production costs are facing decreased profitability due to a tripling in the price of sulphur (Bloomberg)

Wheelin’ n Dealin’

  • CAML has increased its offer price for New World to 5.3c/share (107% premium), while also committing to provide a $10m placement, conditional on either no competing proposal (or a proposal deemed not superior) within 2 weeks (NWC)

  • Oaktree have put forward multiple funding proposals for Tahmoor, which produces ~2Mtpa of met coal, with Gupta asking for a minimum of $150m (AFR)

  • Indonesian miner United Tractors is reported to be scanning the Australian market for mining assets after its recent pursuit of the Ravenswood (Australian)

Rattlin’ the Tin

  • AIC Mines announced a US$40m prepayment facility & offtake agreement with Trafigura to deliver 400kdmt of concentrate, while raising a further $65m (A1M, A1M pres.)

  • Galan has launched a $20m placement at 11c, a 21% premium to close, with existing shareholder Clean Elements (GLN)

  • Macmahon has finalised a new 4-year $550m syndicated debt facility (MAH)

  • Cyngus completed an $18m raising (CY5)

  • Great Boulder is in halt to raise $10.5m at 6.1c (GBR)

  • Following yesterday's debt funding announcement, Asante has executed a C$206m bought deal placement (ASE.CSE)

Word on the Decline

  • We think Covalent Lithium, the JV between Wesfarmers and SQM, is very likely to approve an expansion of Mt Holland in the second half of this year, which will see throughput capacity double from 2Mtpa to 4Mtpa

  • Early signs from Covalent’s Kwinana refinery are also apparently also OK, albeit it is still a bit too early to really know

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In the Weeds

  • Jake Klein: Finding the Front interview (YouTube)

  • Has anyone else been reading Maurice Duffy’s LinkedIn posts (attacks?) aimed at Rio Tinto the last few weeks? Latest post here. But also see this, this and this “Rio’s legal strategy is no secret. Internally, it’s summarised as F.U.C.K. Frustrate. Undermine. Cost. Kick it into the long grass.”

  • More on Repealing the Laws of Economics (Howard Marks Memo YouTube)

  • How Xi’s giant iron ore trader is shaking up a $200B market (West)

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Today’s Top Tweet

Devil’s in the Detail

For the M&A wonks, there’s some pretty neat structuring in today’s New World Resources announcement of a bump in scheme consideration from CAML.

First: making the $10m placement conditional on no superior proposal in the next 14 days. The conditionality here circumvents the Takeovers Panel from likely seeing this as a frustrating action.

Second, the ‘alternative transaction structure’ which introduces a takeover offer conditional on the Scheme failing. Remember those dual transaction structures that became popular in the last 12 months to mitigate those pesky deal-blockers (AZS, SPR)? Well, this is like that.

For Kinterra, the PE group that bought 12% of the company on-market after the CAML announcement - the pressure is on to put up or shut up.

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