'Celebrated jeweller' Sir Michael Hill dies aged 86
The company announced "with great sadness" the passing of their founder in a statement released on Tuesday.
"The Board, Executive and all the Michael Hill team express their deepest and sincerest condolences to Michael's family and friends."
The company has remembered Sir Michael as a "celebrated jeweller, entrepreneur, philanthropist and committed father and husband".
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News.com.au
3 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Assistive tech targets market growth while improving lives
Demand for assistive technologies on the rise with growing global ageing population and awareness of disability inclusion Cochlear one of most high-profile ASX assistive technologies companies with legacy spanning more than 40 years Control Bionics helping thousands around the world communicate and connect in ways once thought impossible With a rising global ageing population and awareness of disability inclusion growing, demand is increasing for technologies that help people maintain independence and improve quality of life. Assistive technologies go beyond medical diagnostics or treatment by directly enabling individuals to hear, see, communicate and perform daily activities they might otherwise struggle to do. And while assistive technology delivers clear social benefits and aligns with ESG goals, it's also targeting a rapidly expanding market. Globally the assistive tech market was valued at ~US$22.9 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach US%36.6 bn by 2033, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.8% throughout the decade. In Australia, the assistive technology sector is projected to expand from ~US$720 million in 2023 to more than US$1.7bn by 2030, driven by demographic shifts such as an ageing population and rising prevalence of long-term disabilities. Australia's substantial healthcare expenditure is also considered a pivotal driver for demand in the Australian disabled and elderly assistive device market. Global pioneer in hearing implant technology From restoring communication for those with severe disabilities to preserving vision and enhancing hearing, Australian companies have a proud history in assistive technologies with ASX blue-chip Cochlear (ASX:COH) one of the most high profile. Cochlear stands as one of the world's foremost innovators in assistive hearing technology with a legacy spanning more than 40 years. Cochlear implants and bone conduction devices are life-changing products, which have enabled hundreds of thousands of people globally across all ages to hear and communicate more effectively. Cochlear CEO and president Dig Howitt told Stockhead the organisation continued to progress new technology and care models, having recently launched the Cochlear Nucleus Nexa System, the world's first and only smart implant system. "The Nucleus Nexa Implant is the outcome of a 20 year investment in R&D and is the first cochlear implant to run its own firmware," he said. Howitt said similar to smartphones, the implant firmware could be updated to enable new features and access future innovations. "Recipients will now have access to a better hearing experience with both implant and sound processor updates," he said. "The Nucleus Nexa System builds upon Cochlear's industry-leading portfolio of electrodes, which are designed to optimise the electrode-neural interface and protect cochlea health and opens the door to even greater hearing potential for patients into the future." Enhancing sound in real-world situations While Cochlear may dominate the implantable hearing device market Brisbane-based Audeara (ASX:AUA) is carving out its own space in personalised listening solutions that sit between consumer audio products and clinical hearing aids. The flagship Audeara headphones and TV bundles the company started with use built-in hearing checks to create tailored sound profiles, ensuring clearer, enhanced listening experiences. Audeara managing director James Fielding told Stockhead the features made the devices valuable for those with mild to moderate hearing loss, or for people using cochlear implants and hearing aids who got an incredible entertainment experience when the sound was tailored to their needs. Building its portfolio Audeara launched Buds into its clinic networks this year. Unlike conventional hearing aids, Buds focus on enhancing the sound in real world situations like a busy cafe while also staying true to their entertainment focus, enhancing calls, TV and music. "We believe assistive technology should enhance the human experience without compromise," Fielding said. "At Audeara, our personalised hearing solutions empower people to connect more deeply with music, conversations and entertainment, regardless of their hearing ability." The technology also supports accessibility through government funding programs including NDIS, DVA and the Hearing Services Program, broadening its reach and affordability. With distribution in 1,500 clinics across Australia and more than 3,000 globally, including partnerships with major networks like Specsavers and Amplifon, Audeara is well positioned to capture growth in a market that's both socially impactful and commercially attractive. "The future of assistive technology is about inclusion, not limitation," Fielding said. "Audeara's mission is to ensure that hearing health solutions are seamlessly integrated into everyday life, combining clinical credibility with consumer-level accessibility." 'Giving communication back for more than two decades' Control Bionics (ASX:CBL) CEO Jeremy Steele describes the assistive technology medical device company as "sitting at the intersection of neuroscience and accessibility". "For more than 20 years, Control Bionics has been at the forefront of assistive technology innovation, helping thousands of people around the world communicate and connect in ways once thought impossible," Steele told Stockhead. Control Bionics has developed the NeuroNode – a wearable, watch-like, wireless non-invasive electromyography (EMG) and spatial sensor device to assist cognitive people with physical disabilities perform everyday functions. He said NeuroNode was globally unique as the only augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technology of its kind that combined movement and EMG signals into a single platform. "Recognition by the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, awarding NeuroNode the first HCPCS code for an AAC device in 13 years, validates both the technology and the profound impact it delivers," he said. "We're proud to be a pioneer in the fast-emerging neurotechnology space, empowering people living with conditions like ALS, cerebral palsy and spinal cord injury to reclaim their voice and their independence." Steele said the company's objective was simple but ambitious – to expand global access to the most advanced, intuitive and life-changing assistive technologies available today. "The NeuroNode isn't just a device, it's a lifeline to communication, control and connection," he said. "We believe that every person – regardless of physical ability — deserves a way to engage with the world. "Our team's work over two decades reflects a deep commitment to designing technologies that break through barriers and restore possibility."
News.com.au
3 minutes ago
- News.com.au
New Zealand's mining dream isn't over, it's back in the race for gold
New Zealand's government led by the business-friendly National Party is keen to boost mining investment Mining friendly policies and the country's prospectivity have increased its attractiveness Gold plays dominate with Uvre the newest company in the country New Zealand may not be the first port of call for resource companies looking for the next big project, but this does not detract from the fact that the country has a rich mineral bounty. The victory of the conservative and business friendly National Party during the November 2023 election has also led to a marked improvement in business sentiment. This is best illustrated in the latest edition of the Fraser Institute's Annual Survey of Mining Companies, which ranked New Zealand as the twelfth most attractive mining jurisdiction in the world, beating out previous power houses such as Western Australia at number 17. Respondents to the survey expressed decreased concerns over uncertainty concerning what areas will be protected, uncertainty over regulation enforcement and uncertainty regarding environmental regulations. New Zealand has flagged interest in doubling its mining exports to NZ$3bn by 2035 and has introduced measures such as the 'Fast Track' legislation, which accelerates permitting processes dramatically by introducing a one-stop shop for permitting. A legend speaks Mining legend Norm Seckold, who was recently appointed as a director of Uvre (ASX:UVA) following the acquisition of his company Octagold and its portfolio of gold projects in the country, believes New Zealand now has all the right ingredients that make it a tasty mining destination. Speaking to Stockhead, he said one reason was the overtly pro-mining stance of the current government and Minister for Resources Shane Jones in particular with the other being its remarkable prospectivity. 'It's relatively underexplored compared to, for example Western Australia where there are lots of new discoveries but it is a very active and competitive exploration market,' he added. 'You've got this highly efficient, very capable exploration industry in West Perth with lots of very smart guys and a whole lot of companies competing for projects. 'But that just hasn't been applied to New Zealand and I just think the opportunity has been overlooked and it shouldn't be because of projects such as the 8Moz Macraes mine in the South Island that has been in production for over 30 years.' Along with the 10Moz endowment on the North Island, it points to the country having serious deposits. 'It's not a little half-million-ounce thing that you hope you can grow a bit, they tend to have scale,' Seckold said. All this matches up closely with his philosophy to exploration which ranks the project first, the location second and the politics in equal second or third place. 'The project, geology and prospectivity has to be number one. And New Zealand is extraordinarily prospective,' he added. The same prospectivity also led Seckold to break one of the tenets of his (admittedly ad hoc) philosophy, which is to focus on the important part. Octagold, which was originally formed by a couple of his former colleagues that then successfully enticed him to become the largest shareholder, had pegged out large tracts of ground over four granted projects, another that is under application and yet another that is being looked over. 'It's a little bit against my religion. I'm a great believer in focus,' Seckold said jokingly about the large landholdings that Uvre now owns. 'I think the whole point is, I can see the rush coming, so despite my beliefs, here's an opportunity and we don't want to just sit there and watch other people pick up the good projects.' Attractive projects As for why he decided to get involved with Octagold, Seckold said the best indicator of where a gold mine could be found was where the old timers had been mining and pointed to Santana Minerals' Rise and Shine discovery as a classic example. 'That's the old Bendigo Goldfield, which was a high grade, low tonnage mine a hundred years ago, or less,' he noted. 'But what happens is you apply more modern geoscience and you find a multi-million ounce deposit. He added that the rising gold price had meant that economically viable open pit mines could now extend to depths of 300m or more compared to between 60m and 70m in the early 1980s. Lower grade finds are also viable and both factors create opportunities. 'The other thing is, there are very good public records in New Zealand and good ore libraries like there are here (in Australia), and you can just see the data,' Seckold added. 'You can see very high-grade assays in the Waitekauri project on the bottom level, they just didn't keep drilling far enough.' The brownfields Waitekauri project is the flagship asset that Uvre acquired and is just 8km west of OceanaGold Corporation's 10Moz Waihi gold mine and along trend from three other +1Moz gold deposits in WKP, Golden Cross and New Talisman Gold's Karangahake. One of the three main prospects, Jubilee, has historical production of 260,000oz of gold and silver and is believed to be a potential extension of Karangahake, Recent rock chip sampling has shown grades as high as 18.4g/t gold while early field mapping revealed a much broader area of post-mineral welded ignimbrite than previously recognised, something earlier explorers hadn't fully understood. Other projects include the 1104 hectare Lottin project east of Rotorua on the North Island, a potential VMS system considered similar in style to Australia's Golden Grove and Rosebery, along with the Roaring Meg, Oturehua and Invincible gold projects, all near Macraes and RAS on New Zealand's South Island. Invincible is also known to boast tungsten, which like gold sits on NZ's critical minerals list. Other ASX players While Uvre is now a significant player in New Zealand, it is still a relative newcomer to the country. New Age Exploration (ASX:NAE) operates the 265km2 Lammerlaw gold and antimony project in Otago that's believed to host Macraes-style mineralisation with 1km gold anomalies, bearing similarities to the gold mine which has produced more than 5Moz since opening in 1990. Lammerlaw also contains the historically mined Bella Lode, where gold was mined during the late 1800s with an average grade of 15g/t before the mine closed in 1901. Previous antimony-targeted exploration has also revealed three mineralised trends with rock chip samples of >30% antimony. The company's belief in Lammerlaw having Macraes-style mineralisation received a shot in the arm after its phase 1 drilling intersected mineralisation textures, pathfinder geochemistry and host rock type that's all consistent with early-stage Macraes-style mineralisation. Of the five holes drilled, four returned gold mineralisation with a top result of 2m at 1.05g/t along with elevated tungsten of up to 1750ppm, up to 680ppm arsenic and antimony. Company executive director Joshua Wellischs said the company would now seek to build on these results by targeting potential higher-grade shoots and drill towards a maiden resource. Also engaged in the gold game on the South Island is Siren Gold (ASX:SNG), which is advancing the Sams Creek project – a gold mineralised porphyry dyke that is up to 50m thick, extends for 7km along strike and has a vertical extent of at least 1km. Sams Creek has a resource of 953,000oz at an average grade of 2.4g/t that is contained within the Main Zone fold, one of several gentle northeast plunging folds the Sams Creek Dyke has been folded into. To date, 21,500m of drilling has been completed on the project with 90% focused on the Main Zone. However, similar folds have been interpreted at Riordans, Western Outcrops, Anvil and Barrons Flat along with Doyles and Main Zone extensions. These have the potential to significantly increase the current resource. Additional resources discovered in the Main Zone, Doyles, Western Outcrops and Anvil folds could be accessed from the potential Main Zone underground mine and hauled to the proposed SE Traverse processing facility. Siren expects a decision to be made on its mining permit application by the end of 2025. It then plans to complete infill drilling on the SE Traverse, Carapace and Main Zone by the end of Q2 2026 so the majority of the inferred resource can be upgraded to the higher confidence indicated category. This will be followed by updates to the resource and scoping study. Santana Minerals (ASX:SMI) has been progressing the Rise and Shine deposit within its Bendigo-Ophir project in the Central Otago Goldfields on New Zealand's South Island. Recent drilling has extended the high-grade domain (HG1) beyond the March 2025 indicated resource boundary by confirming mineralised continuity to the north and strengthening the case for future reserve growth. The drilling had targeted down-plunge extensions of Rise and Shine to improve definition of the inferred resource in the northern extent of the deposit with a view to upgrading it to the indicated category for potential inclusion in the mine plan. Notable results include 31.9m at 5.3g/t gold from 303.1m and 11.1m at 9.6g/t from 296.9m. Bendigo-Ophir has a contained resource of 2.34Moz at an average grade of 2.1g/t gold with Rise and Shine hosting the bulk of this at 2.08Moz grading 2.4g/t gold. It benefits from proximity to Queenstown and existing infrastructure including transportation, clean water, green hydropower and low cost power.
News.com.au
24 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Diggers and Dealers: The fresh faces picking up the keys to the ASX gold mid-tier
A new class of leaders is emerging in the ASX gold scene Taking the mantle from Bill Beament, Raleigh Finlayson and Jake Klein are names like Luke Creagh, James Champion de Crespigny and Alex Rovira Gold miners Ora Banda, Catalyst Metals and Brightstar Resources have sights set on key ASX indices Australia's mid-tier gold sector is always evolving with a host of newcomers now moving into the space previously occupied by Saracen Mineral Holdings and soon, Gold Road Resources. At Diggers and Dealers a decade ago, it was all about Bill Beament's Northern Star Resources, Jake Klein's Evolution Mining and a Raleigh Finlayson's Saracen. These days, Northern Star is a bonafide global major, having swallowed up Saracen, while Evolution is on its way to achieving that status. As for the men behind those companies, for the first time in recent memory, none presented at Diggers this year. Beament is now in copper, Klein has stepped back to non-executive chair at Evolution and Finlayson is rapidly growing Genesis Minerals into Australia's next gold major, but sent lieutenant Matt Nixon in his stead. Replacing them is a bunch of up-and-comers and first-time CEOs with the potential to lead their growing producers into the ASX 200. Luke Creagh, Ora Banda (ASX:OBM) The Davyhurst gold operation in the Eastern Goldfields has been the undoing of several previous owners, but under the leadership of mining engineer Luke Creagh, Ora Banda has turned it around. 'We've spent three years trying to fix it and now it's like 'game on',' Creagh told Stockhead. 'So this is the starting point – we've actually got a company to work with now, which is nice.' Davyhurst produced 91,687 ounces of gold in the 2025 financial year, up 32% year-on-year, with FY26 production guidance of 140,000-155,000oz. 'The exciting thing about Ora Banda from the very first moment was the organic growth potential, so 140km of strike you've got two regional geological formations with the Zuleika shear and Ida fault, and no one's ever looked for undergrounds,' Creagh said. 'That, to me, is the exciting thing. 'The other thing that I think people forget in the industry is how much money it takes to drill out a deposit from scratch and get it into production. 'Our ability to have… to find two undergrounds (being capital constrained), start them and get them up to steady state has been pretty awesome, but it probably points to the prospectivity of the belt.' Creagh, who was previously chief operating officer at Northern Star, said critical mass in the mining sector was important. 'I think being in the mining industry now, your corporate costs are higher than what they used to be, because you need all your disciplines covered,' he said. 'We feel like we've spent three years getting to the starting point. Now we've actually got cashflow and critical mass from a production perspective, but also a capability perspective, to be able to actually grow the company really sensibly.' James Champion de Crespigny, Catalyst Metals (ASX:CYL) Under James Champion de Crespigny, Catalyst has gone from a small-scale producer in Tasmania to an emerging WA mid-tier. The company has been busy consolidating the Marymia gold belt in WA and is now a 100,000oz per annum producer from the Plutonic operation, a long-running mine that was losing money when Catalyst picked it up two years ago. Its most recent deal was the $32.5 million acquisition of the Old Highway deposit in May, as well as the divestment of its legacy asset, the Henty gold mine in Tasmania. The company also raised $150 million and secured a $100 million funding facility, which remains undrawn, giving the company $330 million of liquidity. The stock is up by more than 144% over the past 12 months. Catalyst has outlined a goal to increase production to 200,000ozpa over the next three years while lowering all-in sustaining costs to below $2000 an ounce. Speaking to Stockhead during Diggers, de Crespigny said it was hard to know what the future held, so the focus at Catalyst was on things within the company's control. 'I think internally, we try and keep terribly focused on the belt, and we think we can get that to 200,000 ounces, and we do think that as we get further down that line, we're probably quite well-placed in terms of our value relative to others,' he said. 'I think we've got ambitions to do bigger things. Whether or not we're good enough to get there, time will tell. Whether or not the conditions present, time will tell. 'But we think we've got a very strong technical team. We think we've got a very good operating team, so if the opportunity presents, hopefully we can be good enough to seize those opportunities.' Though smaller than Ora Banda or Catalyst, Brightstar is experiencing rapid growth under geologist and former Canaccord Genuity investment banker Alex Rovira. In the past two years, Brightstar has merged with Kingwest Resources and Alto Metals, acquired unlisted Linden Alliance, bought Gateway Mining's Montague project and only last month, announced a merger with Aurumin. The company's Second Fortune and Fish underground mines in WA's Goldfields are ramping up to 35,000-40,000ozpa, but the company has much bigger ambitions. 'When we execute on Menzies and Laverton, then ultimately Sandstone, we're targeting a plus-200,000 ounce production profile,' Rovira told Stockhead at Diggers. 'That's akin to what Ramelius and Westgold were doing 24 months ago, prior to some of their recent acquisitions. 'Ultimately, I'm a firm believer that you need scale. Institutional investors aren't going to buy something that's a 30,000 or 40,000 ounce producer.' Brightstar's plan is to develop the Menzies and Laverton projects, which will fund the larger Sandstone project. Rovira said the company wanted multiple operating hubs like its larger peers Genesis and Westgold. 'Having multiple sites enables multiple areas of focus, so from an M&A perspective, from an exploration perspective, it gives you a broader scope to build out a business that's going to be around for hopefully a long time,' he said. Rovira admitted he'd been slightly naïve when he was an investment banker. 'You think you know everything about mining, and you go work for mining company and realise you actually know nothing, but it's been a great experience,' he said. Brightstar has gone from a handful of employees to 130 in less than three years and building up capability has been a strong focus for Rovira. It's even been drawing talent from the larger mid-tier gold miners. 'We've obviously had a very aggressive two and a half years and the opportunity that presents for people is exciting, it's attractive,' he said. 'I know we've been very active on the M&A front and that's what people see, but ultimately, building a business is challenging, and you need the right people, and I think we've been very focused on making sure we've got the right bums in the right seats.'
