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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn Gusman with investing news.com fueled by a strengthening gold market mergers and Acquisitions in the gold mining sector has increased in recent years sharing his insights on this trend is Alex Rua managing director of BrightStar resources which recently completed its own acquisition of alal medals hi Alex hi Marilyn how you doing great good to have you thank you so let's start our conversation then with the recent uh acquisition of Alto Metals you've just completed that

acquisition what are the next steps so for us the next steps is to complete the implementation of elto medals and and get onto the ground and start exploring so we've got a Drew RG uh to get out there next week and we'll be drilling there for the entirety of next year uh we're looking at doing about 50,000 meters of of RC and Diamond drilling at that Alto medals ground and looking to grow that resource it's currently 1 million ounces of gold at 1.5 grams per ton and we're looking to grow that quite

substantially um that package of ground has had a a checked corporate history it's it's been um had a number of takeover offers over the journey and really has lacked uh a lot of systematic exploration and a lot of capital spent and we're really excited about what that ground can hold and as I as I mentioned at the beginning you know there's a lot of m&a activities in the gold mining sector uh you know not just in Australia but all over the world what's your take on this

and how does it impact gold exploration and Mining yeah look it's a great question we've we've certainly been a pretty large proponent of of m&a ourselves BR star has done I think four or five m&a transactions in the last two years uh for us in our business it made a lot of sense to conduct some of this m& because it was almost cheaper at times to be acquiring ounces than it was to to raise the money and expore for them so we managed to consolidate a number of uh mispriced or undervalued uh

opportunities in Western Australia and you we've taken that resource from what was 400,000 ounces to now 3 million through sensible m&a and organic exploration for the sector at large it's it's it's great for for investors and shareholders uh look at in in Australia certainly there's been a lot of m&a activity uh in Western Australia this week we saw Northern Star and degrey Mining and A5 billion doll um scheme of arrangement merger which is a fantastic result for for de shareholders with

Australia's largest gold miner in Northern Star what what that does it does free up capital in the sector so investors can can monetize those positions and they can look to reinvest that in in other gold mining companies so it is a it's good for liquidity it's good for investors ultimately for the companies as well it you know provides access to Capital whether there's operational synergies you know different teams uh coming in and looking at different projects for degay for example

uh you know bringing Northern star's ability to execute the build up at Hemi and their capital and their balance sheet and just the Firepower of a of a large 20 billion do business um you know it's it's important for that asset to get developed effectively so it it's really a win-win for everybody uh and know deg's trading at all-time highs and I think that's just indicative of the m&a that's been occurring down here in Australia but certainly it's kind of represented across the

globe from that perspective I think there's uh industry observers we also making you know some observations that a lot of this m& activities that there's not a lot of gold new gold mining uh activities that are happening like new gold production is this going to drive this m&a activities going to drive um you know new minds to open up um what do you see and and do you see any downside to all this uh increased activity uh look don't really see any downside to the increased m&a activity I

think a lot of The Producers at the moment now with the gold price reating where it has recently are are producing a lot of free cash and are making money and they're looking to redeploy that and I think it's just a a conventional assessment Matrix where you look at your own portfolio and do you deploy Capital uh organically into your own projects or do you look at inorganic m&a opportunities and it really comes down to where those businesses are in their business life cycle and the asset life

cycle certainly down here in Australia there's been a focus for a lot of the larger mid-tier producers and larger companies to be acquiring Advanced explorers and developers and really what they're doing is buying you know that medium-term growth profile so the near-term growth comes from their existing operations and exploration really looking to tack on that 3 to 5 to 10 year kind of horizon where you know if you buy an advanced development asset you take it through feasibility studies

you fund it you build it yourself you know you're really kind of getting that additional production profile so that's where we've seen a lot of it down here in Australia is is that mid-tier sector looking to consolidate the advanced explorers and developers and I think that is good for developing new minds uh ultimately the a large company has um yeah easier Capital Windows uh hurdles to get into production so ultimately you know a smaller company need to raise multiples of its market cap in cash can

be challenging so you know to transact and have a mid tier come in and help fund these mine builds actually enable some of these mines to get built uh in a faster timeline than if was just held in the Junior's hands now that the alto medals acquisition is complete what's your strategy for ramping up operations across all your projects so we have uh one operating mine called the second Fortune mine in the lton district of Western Australia we are looking at developing a number of other mines in

that part of the world we have a definitive feasibility study that's underway and due for completion early next year really as a business for us the next few years is going to be characterized by developing a number of these Minds The Sandstone projects which we acquired through Alto are really the longer term growth prospects for our business and there's a million ounces there we feel like there's a lot of expiration upside to grow that quite substantially so we'll be running a a

twofold you know bated pathway between development and exploration and you know for us the the the exploration focus is going to be over in on the Sandstone ground that we acquired from alto as I mentioned we've got uh and we're targeting about 50,000 meters of RC and Diamond drilling there next year in quite a substantial budget to try and unlock that value so for us it's it's it's important that we grow that resource we advance through feasibility studies but also it's important that we

monetize our existing assets and actually look to develop some of the minds that we do own as we wrap up 2024 could you give us a sense of what your plans are for next year so from a EXP perspective as I mentioned it's really focusing on on the Sandstone package we will do uh near mine brownfields exploration at our mens's and lton go projects and really the aspiration there is to take a number of those Minds towards development decisions so ensuring that you we have DFS level drilling we can declare reserves on

these projects ensure that the metallurgical and geotechnical work is completed uh and really getting those projects towards a development stage so it it's definitely um a twofold path there with what we looking at doing as a business we want to be kind of in a position in about a year's time to be having two to three mines in operation or construction and and really looking to leverage off our existing infrastructure the infrastructure in the districts which we operate you know there's great um sealed highways a

number of mills in the district that we're looking to utilize for toall Milling uh you know the Eastern goldfields of Western Australia you know north of Calia it's a great part of the world to be doing business so really it's advancing you know both sides of our business exploration but also Dev and production well thanks again Alex for taking the time to speak with me today thank you very much marn appreciate it and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights if you

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