Adelaide, Australia and Salt Lake City, Utah – 21st August 2006 - Boart Longyear today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Drillcorp Ltd (“DrillCorp”), a highly successful provider of mineral drilling services in Western Australia, from the Avatar Group (ASX code: AVR). The transaction is subject to regulatory and shareholder approval, and should these be satisfied, is expected to close in October 2006.
Headquartered in Perth, W.A. and employing 250 people, DrillCorp operates 22 multi-purpose diamond core drill rigs and 5 reverse circulation rigs each of which provides surface drilling services throughout the region. The business has been built on a platform of providing its customers with efficient, reliable and high quality service, and delivering solutions to some of the industry's most technically challenging drilling projects. The existing senior management of DrillCorp is expected to remain with the business.
DrillCorp will complement Boart Longyear’s successful Western Australian business, which traditionally has concentrated on providing underground drilling services. Boart Longyear recently acquired North West Drilling, a privately owned drilling business also operating from Perth that has a fleet of 8 surface drilling rigs. The combination of DrillCorp with Boart Longyear’s operations will enable Boart Longyear to offer its customers in the region a complete suite of drilling services.
“We see this as an exciting growth opportunity in one of the world’s largest markets for drilling services,” said Paul Brunner, CEO of Boart Longyear. “Combining DrillCorp’s skills and experience with our own proven capabilities will enable us to offer a wide range of services to all mining companies, from the largest to the smallest, with world standard competencies in underground and surface drilling. The proposed acquisition of DrillCorp represents another important step in achieving our goal of offering our customers the highest quality service, while operating at the highest safety and reliability levels.”
Under Australian Stock Exchange rules the sale is subject to the approval of Avatar shareholders. The directors of the Avatar Group, who own or control approximately 60% of issued shares, are unanimously recommending shareholders to vote in favour of these resolutions subject to no unforeseen circumstance. The directors have similarly stated their intention to vote in favour of the resolution.
About Boart Longyear
Boart Longyear is a global organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah with offices and operations in Asia Pacific, North and South America, Europe and Africa. Boart Longyear is the leading provider of essential drilling services and drilling products for the global mining industry, and also has a substantial presence in drilling for other purposes including water exploration, environmental and oil sands exploration drilling.
Boart Longyear, with 2005 sales of over $1 billion, and 7,000 employees worldwide, has global capabilities, conducting contract drilling services in more than 25 countries, and providing mining products to customers in over 100 countries.
Boart Longyear’s Australian head office is in Adelaide and the business operates from regional centres throughout Australia.
Boart Longyear is currently owned by global private equity firms Advent International and Bain Capital.
About Advent International
Advent International (www.adventinternational.com) is one of the world’s leading private equity firms, with $10 billion in cumulative capital raised and offices in 14 countries across North America, Western and Central Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Since its founding in 1984, Advent has invested in over 500 companies and has helped businesses raise $10 billion through public equity and debt offerings. These include over 130 IPOs on major stock exchanges worldwide.
About Bain Capital
Bain Capital (www.baincapital.com) is a global private investment firm that manages several pools of capital including private equity, high-yield assets, mezzanine capital, venture capital and public equity with more than $38 billion in assets under management. Since its inception in 1984, Bain Capital has made private equity investments and add-on acquisitions in over 230 companies around the world including such industrial companies as Brenntag AG, SigmaKalon, NOVACAP and Innophos. Headquartered in Boston, Bain Capital has offices in New York, London, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Contact details:
Denis Despres
Senior V.P, Global Drilling Services
Boart Longyear Company
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ph: 1 801 972 6430
Sean Fanning
V.P. Finance, Global Drilling Services
Boart Longyear Company
Salt Lake City, Utah
Ph: 1 801 972 6430
