When a mining company is put into voluntary administration it seems the next step is usually for the administrator to put the operation into care and maintenance and put up the for sale sign.

After all, administrators take on significant risk when they accept an appointment.

Ryan, however, has had a lot of experience with mining companies. His efforts to get Australian Securities-exchanged Indonesia-focused gold miner Kingrose Mining through voluntary administration and back to life gave him confidence that he could do the same with Gascoyne.

It was not to be an easy ride. As with any administration, the first few weeks are a scramble as the administrators try to get an understanding for the business.

Then, just as the way forward started to become clearer, along came COVID-19.

Gascoyne went into voluntary administration on June 3 2019 with Ryan one of the three administrators appointed along with FTI colleagues Kathryn Warwick and Ian Francis.

The company had started to struggle due to grade and strip ratio issues at its Dalgaranga gold mine in Western Australia's Goldfields region. Basically it was not getting the gold it expected to get from the ground it was mining.

"We had to assess the risk right from the start," Ryan said.

"We had to run a dual track process."

That meant trying to keep the mine going while trying to find out what went wrong, while also looking to see if there were any buyers for the business.

"In the first month or so we said to the mining team we had no money so we had to make the mine self-funding," Ryan said.

"They came up with an interim mine plan to reduce waste stripping and focus on gold production."

It was understood that plan was not sustainable in the longer term but would at least keep things moving.

In the first three weeks of the administration a decision was taken to bring in Blast Movement Technologies' blast monitoring system to get better reconciliation between the ore model and what was going through the mill.

Ryan said there had been a 40% difference between what was predicted and reality.

"It was a A$140,000 decision, which was a big decision given the amount of money we had at the time," he said.

The administrators later worked out that had the BMT system not been used the ore loss would have led to it missing out on about 834 ounces of gold - that would be worth about US$900,000. There was about 6000t of material misclassified and 4600t of dilution.

Other spending along the way included A$400,000 in October 2019 for dewatering bores; $2.2 million for a tailings storage facility lift in January 2020; $700,000 for process water bores and $300,000 for an automated cyanide system in March 2020; and $700,000 for a major mill reline in May 2020.

It was about three months into the administration when the business was put on the market and the offers came in around October-November 2019.

Ryan also brought in Mining One, a Melbourne-based consultancy led by Gary Davison.

On his recommendation Mike McCracken was brought in as general manager.

As luck would have it Ryan had worked with McCracken at Kingrose.

Ryan and his team also worked with NRW, which had been the mining contractor at Dalgaranga prior to the administration.

"At the site level we focused on building a collaborative relationship with the mining contractor," Ryan said.

It was while the interim plan was up and running that real game changer was discovered.

"Once we worked out that there was the possibility to continue to operate the business rather than shutting it down we had to think with a going concern mindset," Ryan said.

"We were operating the mine so we had to continue spending capital to continue improving the mine."

Mining One recommended a finite element analysis be conducted on the pit wall to see if it could be steepened.

Ryan said it was not a big investment either.

"It was a study but it turned out to be a very important study," he said.

"It led to about a $70 million cash flow saving over the life of mine. That was the game changer. It made up for the grade being low."

The pit wall steepening study results did not come back until November.

The engineers had been confident that the pit wall could have been steepened but the FEA work had to be done.

Work also started on a cutback that let the mine access the Gilbey's Main Zone, giving it access to higher grade gold.

The decision to conduct the cutback was taken in November 2019, however, NRW had to mobilise equipment to site so the work was not started until December.

That cutback work proved crucial because it helped the operation start to turn out 6000 ounces a month.

The plan had been to get the cutback going and revisit the market.

However, COVID-19 happened.

No-one could get to site so the sales process stalled.

It also led to difficulties getting staff to and from site. Flights almost had to double to allow appropriate distancing.

McCracken, who lives in Victoria, took the tough decision to stay in WA for six months so he could continue to get to site.

All the way through the administration Warwick was working on the east coast to keep Gascoyne's banks informed.

That was vital because the banks could have appointed a receiver to Gascoyne at any time.

Warwick said getting the support of the lenders was a key element in allowing the administrators sufficient time to get the interim mine plan in place and progress the cutback.

"They gave us an initial overdraft facility that allowed us to bridge the gap on appointment," she said.

"When we went through with the decision to spend $15 million to do the cutback they provided us with some support."

Ryan said getting the stakeholders to work together was a key to the administration's success.

He put a lot of the success of those efforts down to Andrew Bantock, who leads FTI's business transformation team.

Bantock held several senior executive positions in resources companies prior to joining FTI.

"He championed our guys being on site in high-vis working with the guys on site," Ryan said.

"The advisors we used were able to leverage off those long-term relationships."

Ryan said the way the administrators worked with the shareholders right through the process was important.

"If you want to use voluntary administration to turn companies around you need to build a relationship with the owners of the company," he said.

"In a public company that's harder because there are so many of them."

With Gascoyne there was a major shareholder in Germany - private investment company Delphi Unternehmensberatung Aktiengesellschaft. According to Gascoyne's 2019-20 annual report Delphi holds a 17.3% stake.

Besides Delphi, NRW was a shareholder and there were several other groups with decent sized holdings.

"We could check with 50% of the shareholders by talking to 12 groups," Ryan said.

"We hopped on a plane - when we still could - to Germany and took the brunt of their disappointment and told them how the VA could turn the company around.

"When the prospectus was put out they understood the story."

The administrators did not just stop with that group of shareholders. They kept putting out announcements as if Gascoyne was still operating as a listed company, even though trading in its shares was suspended at the time.

Warwick said the administrators communicated in real time where appropriate to various stakeholders.

What also helped build the turnaround story was that value was continuing to build in the business.

"There continued to be more consistency around the forecasts," Ryan said.

"We were getting 6000 ounces per month."

Things were starting to look good and by August the job seemed done.

"We'd got to the stage the business was making money," Ryan said.

"We'd more or less convinced the market the problems leading to the voluntary administration had been solved.

"We'd received some low offers and been able to hang onto the mine.

"We'd got through COVID and got the ASX to approve the notice of meeting."

Cannacord had been appointed as lead manager and to run the book build for an $85 million capital raising and it was confident of raising the money.

The meeting was to be held on August 4.

On August 3 privately run miner Habrok Mining launched a Federal Court legal bid to put Gascoyne into liquidation.

Talking to Ryan about it in FTI's Perth office it is almost possible to hear the remaining echoes of a word that sounds a lot like puck.

"We weren't feeling great," Ryan admitted.

"When that came through it was the five stages of grief. We went and spoke to the lawyers, got some advice that we had a good case and just had to deal with it."

On September 29 2020 justice Jonathon Beach ruled in Gascoyne's favour.

In his judgement he said: "I see nothing in the evidence that would justify me in second guessing the administrator's preference for recapitalisation over sale in the first half of 2020".

With the matter settled, Gascoyne was allowed to move forward.

Net debt under the restructure went down from $120 million to $10 million. There was $85 million raised in equity.

All creditors have been repaid in full.

Ryan said shareholders, if they did nothing, ended up with 20% of the company and most did take up their rights under the equity raising.

So what gave Ryan the confidence the mine could be saved?

"I just had a strong hope at the beginning that this was one that could be turned around," he said.

"We try to save every company if we can.

"We've got a lot of experience in the mining industry.

"We've built very strong relationships with some of these consultants.

"We've seen bad mines and good mines."

Gascoyne did have some good things going for it.

Ryan said it had a brand new plant.

"Gary came to site and said it was a big system," he said.

"Obviously there was a lot of gold there. It was just whether we could get it out profitably.

"Getting to the GMZ was what was important."

Ryan pointed out another sign pointing to the success of the process.

"A lot of companies that go through voluntary administration change their name," he said.

"This one didn't."