Northern Star boss Stuart Tonkin was in good spirits at a Business News Sector Briefing this week despite a possible spanner thrown in the works for the gold miner's planned takeover of WA developer De Grey Mining.  

Some uncertainty around the deal has arguably arisen since South Africa-based Gold Fields lobbed a bid to acquire its Gruyere joint venture partner, ASX-listed Gold Road Resources, which in turn holds a 17.3% stake in De Grey. 

Gold Road is yet to declare whether it will vote in favour of the Northern Star-De Grey deal and seems keen to keep its options open.  

A condition of Gold Fields' proposal stipulates that Gold Road would need to vote in favour of the Northern Star-De Grey bid and maintain its interest until the Gold Fields acquisition completes. 

Now, for all intents and purposes, the hostile Gold Fields-Gold Road situation currently has no impact on Northern Star's De Grey bid. But with a shareholder vote over the latter scheme still three weeks away, there's a lot that could happen. 

In a letter to shareholders published late on Thursday, Gold Road's board said the requirement to maintain its De Grey shareholding was a key factor in considering — and rejecting — the Gold Fields offer.  

"Such transactions [Northern Star-De Grey] can take in excess of 3-4 months to complete, such that the requirement to continue to hold the relevant De Grey/Northern Star shares removes any flexibility Gold Road may otherwise have to realise value for those shares at an earlier point in time for the benefit of Gold Road shareholders," the letter read.  

Northern Star's Tonkin, when asked if it was frustrating that Gold Road wouldn't give an answer about its voting intentions, said it was fair and understandable.  

"It's not frustrating at all," Tonkin said.  

"It's probably what I would do … as every other shareholder on their register would do — consider things prudently. I think it's good governance by their board." 

He said he wasn't surprised by the silence but remained confident that when push came to shove, Gold Road would see the value of the De Grey buyout.  

"But we're three weeks off a vote and my lawyer is in the room, so I can't say anything else," Tonkin jested.  

He said Northern Star wouldn't be fazed by the developing Gold Fields-Gold Road situation, which wasn't uncommon for the gold space. Tonkin commented that unlike iron ore majors, for example, gold players often "don't stay in their lane".  

"This is what we're witnessing with all this sort of jostling in the back of the peloton; they're all just trying to jump ahead," he said.  

"So you must have a clear purpose and good discipline through the cycles." 

Discipline remains a key talking point for Tonkin, with the CEO having in the past frequently touted Northern Star's cool-headed and controlled approach to growth as a driver of its success. 

When gold prices started their climb in the second half of last year, Tonkin told MNN Northern Star was not distracted by the potential inorganic growth opportunities that were popping up amid the elevated pricing environment. 

"I think we have very compelling organic growth opportunities that we are delivering into, and that's our primary focus at the moment," he said.   

"It certainly doesn't count out what we've built the company on today, but it's important that we are delivering on the growth plans we've articulated to the wider market."   

As the sentiment for gold continued to improve and it looked like high prices were here to stay, Northern Star broke away from this organic growth focus and made the A$5 billion offer for De Grey. 

South Africa-based Gold Fields has so far maintained that it has no plans to lob a competing bid for De Grey. 

"As at the date of this announcement, Gold Fields has no intention to present a ‘competing proposal' in connection with De Grey and is committed to seeing the full benefit of the De Grey/Northern Star equity position being delivered to Gold Road shareholders as part of the proposed acquisition," Gold Fields said earlier this week.