Joint venture for gold project formed with KWM's help

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has helped a client ink a farm-in and joint-venture agreement for a gold project in Victoria.

The legal giant advised St Barbara on its arrangement with Kite Operations, a subsidiary of ASX-listed Catalyst Metals, which will lead to St Barbara managing exploration for the Drummartin gold project.

Under the agreement, St Barbara may acquire up to 50% of the exploration project by contributing exploration funding worth $3.5m in the first four years. St Barbara will act as manager of the project during both the earn-in and joint-venture periods, as long as it holds the half-stake. Kite will be the “on ground” operator, KWM said.

KWM said that this was the second farm-in and joint-venture agreement it helped St Barbara close in 2019. The first one was St Barbara’s agreement for the Horn Island project, finalised in the first half of 2019.

The KWM team was headed by partner Scott Langford, who was supported by KWM M&A corporate partner Will Heath and solicitors Lachlan Fahey, Luci Kjar-Cruttenden, and Jeremy Hart.