Takeover speculation as Perseus Mining climbs up Predictive Discovery’s register with 19.9 per cent stake

Hungry for more African gold, Perseus Mining is tightening its grip on Predictive Discovery while insisting there will be no takeover move, but recent form suggests otherwise.

Perseus has its sights trained on the Guinean-focused Predictive, just months after wrapping up the $270m acquisition of Tim Goyder’s Tanzanian gold mine developer OreCorp.

Perseus first popped up on the Predictive share register with a 13.82 per cent stake last month and after boosting that stake to 19.9 per cent by Friday the West African mining specialist has a total holding now worth about $110m.

The Jeff Quatermaine-led Perseus will essentially have to launch a takeover offer for Predictive to push its ownership level materially higher.

Perseus says unless an interloper tries to take a major slice of Predictive it will not lob a buyout bid.

“Subject to there being no actual or proposed material change in the shareholding of Predictive (including a change of control proposal) or the actions of Predictive, Perseus has no current intention to acquire control or make a takeover offer for Predictive,” Perseus told the ASX on Friday.

But it made a similar declarations in November when it built a 19.9 per cent stake in OreCorp.

“Perseus is not currently in active discussions with OreCorp and does not intend to submit a change of control transaction in competition to the current scheme that Silvercorp Metals has offered to OreCorp shareholders,” Perseus said at the time.

OreCorp ended up in the hands of Perseus in May after the latter ended up gazumping the proposal from Canada’s Silvercorp.

Both Perseus and Predictive are headquartered in Subiaco.

Perseus has three operating mines across Ghana and the Ivory Coast, while Predictive is developing the Bankan gold project in Guinea. All three countries are located in West Africa.

Shares in Predictive spiked 11 per cent in early trade on Friday as takeover speculation swirls.

Perseus has capitalised on the record gold price to sit on a huge war chest of about $870m in cash and bullion at June 30, with no debt.