Venus rejects increased bid as Rox shares and royalty value surge
QGold has upped its bid to 21c, but Venus Metals isn’t blinking. With a $40m gold royalty and rising asset values, the board says the offer still sells shareholders short.
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By James Pearson
January 12, 2026 — 1.50pm
There’s a fine line between opportunistic and opportunism, and Venus Metals Corporation reckons QGold has crossed it.
After launching an on-market takeover at 17 cents late last year - which at the time was where Venus shares were trading on-market - QGold has now increased its bid to 21 cents a share, worth $42.25 million and declared the offer final.
Venus Metals Corporation managing director Matthew Hogan
Again, this latest bid exactly reflects the current market price for Venus, doing little to capture the value management believes is building beneath the surface.
The move extends the bid window to the end of January, but it hasn’t shifted the mood in the Venus boardroom one inch.
The message from directors remains clear: take no action.
The disconnect becomes even sharper when Venus’ crown-jewel, one per cent net smelter royalty at Rox Resources’ Youanmi gold project is factored in. A fresh independent valuation has put a bright spotlight on the asset, with its value surging more than 160 per cent since mid-2025 to $40 million, fuelled by a rising gold price and Youanmi’s steady advance towards production.
That single asset alone now rivals the entire valuation implied by QGold’s bid.
Notably, Venus says it has already received multiple unsolicited approaches to sell some or all of its royalty at levels significantly above the earlier valuation, despite running no formal sale process.
Layered on top of the royalty is Venus’ equity exposure to Rox itself. The company owns 50 million Rox shares, giving it more than five per cent exposure to the same Youanmi development story. At current prices, the holding alone is worth an additional $27 million and has delivered a net profit of a whopping $9.195 million for the half year, just from the revaluation.
Rox’s DFS has outlined a long-life, high-margin gold mine targeting more than 800,000 ounces of production over an initial seven-year mine life. The company has also secured $200 million in fresh capital, bringing the project to a development-ready stage and creating a much sharper focus on Venus’ royalty.