A host of new equity partners have come on board at Kalgoorlie’s Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum, including industry luminaries and conference veterans.
A host of new equity partners have come on board at Kalgoorlie’s Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum, including industry luminaries and conference veterans.
Diggers chairman and former WesTrac boss Jim Walker, long-serving event director Suzanne Christie and event logistics manager Gavin Everett have each taken on equity stakes in Palace Securities, which runs the high-profile annual event.
They will be joined by gold industry figures including Northern Star Resources managing director and CEO Stuart Tonkin, and Capricorn Metals boss Mark Clark.
Longreach Capital founder and managing director Darren Martin rounds out the list of new equity partners, announced weeks out from the 33rd conference in the event’s history.
Current owners Myles Ertzen and Sharon Giorgetta will retain a significant stake in the business and continue their active role in running the high-profile mining conference.
“We are very pleased to have attracted high quality shareholders to the business,” Mr Ertzen said.
“The new expanded ownership group is excited to be part of the unique and world-class mining event that Diggers & Dealers offers delegates in Kalgoorlie-Boulder each year.”
The new equity structure broadens an ownership model which has traditionally been tightly held.
Husband and wife duo Mr Ertzen and Ms Giorgetta – whose father Nick was chair of the conference from 2014 to 2019 – have owned Palace Securities since 2017, and both have a long association with Kalgoorlie and the conference.
The pair purchased the business from Kate Stokes, whose family owned it for 27 years. Mrs Stokes’ late husband, Geoff Stokes, founded the business in 1992.
The 2024 Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum runs from August 5-7 and takes place amid a strong gold price environment.
The at-times controversial conference brings an annual influx of delegates to the state’s unofficial gold capital and bills itself as the nation’s leading mining forum.
