UNDERGROUND

Mastermyne seeks to cut it in hard rock with PYBAR buy

MASTERMYNE is entering into the hard rock contracting arena with its proposal to acquire PYBAR Mining Services in a $99 million deal.

The acquisition will give Mastermyne diversification into base metals and commodities outside of metallurgical coal.

The acquisition will give Mastermyne diversification into base metals and commodities outside of metallurgical coal.

As part of this transaction the company is also proposing a name change for the holding group from Mastermyne Group to Metarock Group.

The PYBAR acquisition implies an enterprise value of approximately $99 million for PYBAR, and an expected equity purchase price of approximately $47 million once debt items are considered.

The combined group will have a $1.7 billion order book and an active tender pipeline of $2.7 billion post completion. 

The acquisition will give Mastermyne diversification into base metals and commodities outside of metallurgical coal.

Mastermyne CEO Tony Caruso said PYBAR's revenues, which are predominantly drawn from gold, copper, zinc and lead, would combine with those of Mastermyne to increase the combined group's earnings resilience across commodity cycles.

He said the PYBAR acquisition was an exciting opportunity for the company to accelerate growth and become a leading national mining services organisation with material scale.

"The PYBAR acquisition is highly complementary to Mastermyne's existing underground business and expands the combined group's addressable markets to support ongoing growth, in addition to increasing the earnings resilience of the group by diversifying our commodity exposure," Caruso said.

"With this acquisition we are building a diversified underground mining services business providing specialised underground services directly linked to production."

Metarock Group will be established as the brand for the combined group with the aim of the name becoming recognised as an Australian diversified underground mining services group. Mastermyne and PYBAR are to become operating subsidiaries.

On successful completion of the transaction the PYBAR vendors will become shareholders in Mastermyne owning about 23.2 million shares accounting for 17.7% of the register post completion.

PYBAR founder Paul Rouse will join the Mastermyne board as a non-executive director and brings with him more than 30 years of mining services experience.

He is a mining engineer with extensive hard rock experience across all aspects of mine design, mine planning, mine management, production and development.

"We are very excited to be joining the Mastermyne group and working with the Mastermyne team to continue to grow the PYBAR business," Rouse said.

"We view this as a unique opportunity to bring two quality businesses together, that are highly complementary to one another, and to accelerate the opportunities that lay ahead of us.

"This acquisition will be value adding for our management, our workforce and our clients and I look forward to joining the board".

PYBAR Mining Services is a nationwide provider of mining services with its core competency in metalliferous underground hard rock mining.

Established in 1993, PYBAR has grown into one of Australia's larger underground mining contractors undertaking contracts across Australia.

The business has a workforce of more than 1100 people, led by an experienced long-term management team.

It offers a complete underground contract mining service backed by a large fleet of equipment. Those services include mine development, raiseboring, mine production, shotcreting, cable bolting, and production drilling.

The business has a diverse portfolio of contracts with mining companies throughout Australia.

Its order book is made up of multiple longstanding contracts built from relationships developed over many years.

PYBAR will continue to operate as an independent business unit within the Mastermyne Group with the existing management team, who have successfully developed the business to this point, continuing to lead the day-to-day operations.

 

 

 

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