Barton Gold Receives Early Support from Cobra Shareholders for Proposed Wudinna Acquisition

Barton Gold Holdings (ASX: BGD) (OTCQB: BGDFF) has reported that Cobra Resources shareholders will meet to vote on its proposed $15 million acquisition of the Wudinna gold project in South Australia.

Cobra has issued a notice of meeting for 24 July for shareholders to vote on the deal, which will see Barton adding 279,000 ounces (5.81 million tonnes at 1.5 grams per tonne gold) to its portfolio for a total regional gold endowment of 2.14Moz (78.9Mt at 0.85g/t).

Barton has paid Cobra a $50,000 non-refundable deposit and is now awaiting the results of the shareholder vote, which it expects to build on the existing 39% irrevocable undertakings by Cobra shareholders to vote in favour of the transaction.

Shareholder Support

Barton managing director Alexander Scanlon was confident about moving forward with the Wudinna acquisition.

“We are honoured to have received such a strong early commitment of support from Cobra’s largest investors and we note the overwhelmingly positive feedback from our own shareholders for this mutually-beneficial transaction,” he said.

“Wudinna offers significant optionality to our regional strategies and we will be pleased to welcome Cobra to our register as we steadily build value across our platform.”

Transaction Consideration

Under the terms of the proposed transaction, Barton will pay Cobra an initial consideration of $1 million comprising the non-refundable deposit plus $150,000 cash.

The company will also issue Cobra with $800,000 in Barton shares on granting of tenements within exploration licence applications 2024/0033, 2024/0034, 2024/0035 and 2024/0036.

Barton will pay a further $300,000 in cash and $4.2m in shares on transfer of title and up to $9.5m in contingency payments on the achievement of certain exploration and production milestones.

Rare Earths Discovery

The Wudinna project comprises 22 orogenic gold targets with significant grades of between 16g/t and 37.4g/t gold outside of the current 279,000oz resource.

All ounces occur within 200 metres of surface, positioning the project as a low-cost, camp-scale open pit operation with potential growth through further infill and extensional drilling.

In 2021, Wudinna’s economics were enhanced on the discovery of critical rare earth elements overlying the gold mineralisation and by 2023, Cobra had defined a 41.6Mt rare earth resource estimate above and proximal to gold at the Baggy Green and Clarke prospects.