No-one has ever been able to turn lead into gold, as medieval alchemists promised, but two Australian billionaires have found a way to turn iron ore into gold.
Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest with fortunes estimated by Forbes at $30.1 billion and $14.8 billion respectively have added gold to their better-known interest in mining iron ore.
In Rinehart’s case the addition of gold is almost accidental with a small lithium exploration company in which she has a 10% interest carving out a gold business with the aim being to catch the record gold price of more than $3380 an ounce.
Delta Lithium, which has been hit by an 80% collapse in the price of the battery metal, is now working on the creation of Ballard Mining which aims to redevelop the Mt Ida goldmine in Western Australia.
The historic mine is located close to Lake Ballard which is home to 51 steel statues made by British artist Antony Gormley and installed in 2003 for a temporary exhibition but have remained as a tourist attraction.
The addition of the gold asset to a struggling lithium business has revitalised the Delta share price which has risen by 18% over the past month but remains well below its peak during the lithium boom of two years ago.
Forrest is more focused, playing a key role in creating a world class goldmining company based on the big Telfer mine in Western Australia.
Greatland Gold, currently listed on the London Stock Exchange, but planning to relocate to Australia, been a spectacular performer over the past 12-month with its shares rising by 150% to 14.6 pence.
Forrest and his separated wife Nicola, through their company, Wyloo, have an 8.45% interest in Greatland but have indirect interests which could see their stake rise to 21% of Greatland which has a current stock market value of $2.5 billion.
In theory, that means the Forrest duo will have turned a modest initial investment in Greatland into a stake worth more than $500 million.
The complex evolution of Greatland from obscurity into an emerging gold leader has involved a series of deals, capital raisings, and the appointment of leading businesspeople to the company’s board.
Greatland’s chairman, Mark Barnaba, is a long-time director of Fortescue, the iron ore business controlled by the Forrests. Other directors are Elizabeth Gaines, a former chief executive of Fortescue and Jimmy Wilson, a former head of the iron ore division of the world’s biggest mining company BHP.
The key assets in Greatland are the Telfer ore processing plant, unmined areas of the primary orebody and nearby ore deposits being developed to feed the Telfer plant.
Gold, for Rinehart and Forrest, is secondary to their iron ore assets but with the gold price rising and the iron ore price falling it’s likely that gold will become of increasing interest.
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