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- A brand new class of leaders is rising within the ASX gold scene
- Taking the mantle from Invoice Beament, Raleigh Finlayson and Jake Klein are names like Luke Creagh, James Champion de Crespigny and Alex Rovira
- Gold miners Ora Banda, Catalyst Metals and Brightstar Sources have sights set on key ASX indices
Australia’s mid-tier gold sector is all the time evolving with a bunch of newcomers now transferring into the house beforehand occupied by Saracen Mineral Holdings and shortly, Gold Highway Sources.
At Diggers and Sellers a decade in the past, it was all about Invoice Beament’s Northern Star Sources, Jake Klein’s Evolution Mining and a Raleigh Finlayson’s Saracen.
Lately, Northern Star is a bonafide international main, having swallowed up Saracen, whereas Evolution is on its technique to attaining that standing.
As for the lads behind these corporations, for the primary time in current reminiscence, none offered at Diggers this 12 months.
Beament is now in copper, Klein has stepped again to non-executive chair at Evolution and Finlayson is quickly rising Genesis Minerals into Australia’s subsequent gold main, however despatched lieutenant Matt Nixon in his stead.
Changing them is a bunch of up-and-comers and first-time CEOs with the potential to guide their rising producers into the ASX 200.
The Davyhurst gold operation within the Japanese Goldfields has been the undoing of a number of earlier house owners, however underneath the management of mining engineer Luke Creagh, Ora Banda has turned it round.
“We’ve spent three years attempting to repair it and now it’s like ‘recreation on’,” Creagh informed Stockhead.
“So that is the start line – we’ve really obtained an organization to work with now, which is sweet.”
Davyhurst produced 91,687 ounces of gold within the 2025 monetary 12 months, up 32% year-on-year, with FY26 manufacturing steerage of 140,000-155,000oz.
“The thrilling factor about Ora Banda from the very first second was the natural progress potential, so 140km of strike you’ve obtained two regional geological formations with the Zuleika shear and Ida fault, and nobody’s ever appeared for undergrounds,” Creagh mentioned.
“That, to me, is the thrilling factor.
“The opposite factor that I feel folks overlook within the business is how a lot cash it takes to drill out a deposit from scratch and get it into manufacturing.
“Our skill to have… to seek out two undergrounds (being capital constrained), begin them and get them as much as regular state has been fairly superior, but it surely in all probability factors to the prospectivity of the belt.”
Creagh, who was beforehand chief working officer at Northern Star, mentioned important mass within the mining sector was necessary.
“I feel being within the mining business now, your company prices are larger than what they was once, since you want all of your disciplines coated,” he mentioned.
“We really feel like we’ve spent three years attending to the start line. Now we’ve really obtained cashflow and significant mass from a manufacturing perspective, but in addition a functionality perspective, to have the ability to really develop the corporate actually sensibly.”
Underneath James Champion de Crespigny, Catalyst has gone from a small-scale producer in Tasmania to an rising WA mid-tier.
The corporate has been busy consolidating the Marymia gold belt in WA and is now a 100,000oz each year producer from the Plutonic operation, a long-running mine that was dropping cash when Catalyst picked it up two years in the past.
Its most up-to-date deal was the $32.5 million acquisition of the Previous Freeway deposit in Might, in addition to the divestment of its legacy asset, the Henty gold mine in Tasmania.
The corporate additionally raised $150 million and secured a $100 million funding facility, which stays undrawn, giving the corporate $330 million of liquidity.
The inventory is up by greater than 144% over the previous 12 months.
Catalyst has outlined a purpose to extend manufacturing to 200,000ozpa over the following three years whereas reducing all-in sustaining prices to under $2000 an oz.
Talking to Stockhead throughout Diggers, de Crespigny mentioned it was exhausting to know what the long run held, so the main target at Catalyst was on issues inside the firm’s management.
“I feel internally, we attempt to hold terribly centered on the belt, and we expect we are able to get that to 200,000 ounces, and we do suppose that as we get additional down that line, we’re in all probability fairly well-placed by way of our worth relative to others,” he mentioned.
“I feel we’ve obtained ambitions to do larger issues. Whether or not or not we’re adequate to get there, time will inform. Whether or not or not the situations current, time will inform.
“However we expect we’ve obtained a really robust technical staff. We predict we’ve obtained an excellent working staff, so if the chance presents, hopefully we could be adequate to grab these alternatives.”
Although smaller than Ora Banda or Catalyst, Brightstar is experiencing fast progress underneath geologist and former Canaccord Genuity funding banker Alex Rovira.
Up to now two years, Brightstar has merged with Kingwest Sources and Alto Metals, acquired unlisted Linden Alliance, purchased Gateway Mining’s Montague undertaking and solely final month, introduced a merger with Aurumin.
The corporate’s Second Fortune and Fish underground mines in WA’s Goldfields are ramping as much as 35,000-40,000ozpa, however the firm has a lot larger ambitions.
“After we execute on Menzies and Laverton, then in the end Sandstone, we’re focusing on a plus-200,000 ounce manufacturing profile,” Rovira informed Stockhead at Diggers.
“That’s akin to what Ramelius and Westgold have been doing 24 months in the past, previous to a few of their current acquisitions.
“In the end, I’m a agency believer that you simply want scale. Institutional buyers aren’t going to purchase one thing that’s a 30,000 or 40,000 ounce producer.”
Brightstar’s plan is to develop the Menzies and Laverton initiatives, which is able to fund the bigger Sandstone undertaking.
Rovira mentioned the corporate wished a number of working hubs like its bigger friends Genesis and Westgold.
“Having a number of websites permits a number of areas of focus, so from an M&A perspective, from an exploration perspective, it offers you a broader scope to construct out a enterprise that’s going to be round for hopefully a very long time,” he mentioned.
Rovira admitted he’d been barely naïve when he was an funding banker.
“You suppose all the things about mining, and also you go work for mining firm and realise you really know nothing, but it surely’s been an excellent expertise,” he mentioned.
Brightstar has gone from a handful of workers to 130 in lower than three years and build up functionality has been a powerful focus for Rovira.
It’s even been drawing expertise from the bigger mid-tier gold miners.
“We’ve clearly had a really aggressive two and a half years and the chance that presents for folks is thrilling, it’s engaging,” he mentioned.
“I do know we’ve been very energetic on the M&A entrance and that’s what folks see, however in the end, constructing a enterprise is difficult, and also you want the correct folks, and I feel we’ve been very centered on ensuring we’ve obtained the correct bums in the correct seats.”
At Stockhead, we inform it like it’s. Whereas Ora Banda and Brightstar Sources are Stockhead advertisers, they didn’t sponsor this text.
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