Aberdeen International update (AAB.TO, AABVF)
I pasted below a recent article with comments by COO. Here is the link:
miningweekly.com
Sulliden is back in the crapper (1.70 CAD), so I had wondered about lightening my trading position in AAB.TO (0.85 CAD), looking for a better entry price if the discount widens.
However, another thesis of mine is that management will create value over time, and with "risk back on," I think I will just let things ride. Company is still at a nice discount, buying back shares, and a dividend hike may be in the works (shouldn't they disclose that to everyone by the way, not in an analyst presentation?). That being said, I am not going to buy more at these levels.
MC
TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-listed Sulliden Gold, which owns a gold deposit in the Peruvian Andes, would make a likely takeover target for companies like gold giants Barrick and Newmont, which own mines nearby, Aberdeen International COO David Stein said on Wednesday.
Aberdeen is an investment company that puts money into early stage mining projects, and Sulliden is the firm’s largest position currently.
“I think this company will most likely be taken out,” Stein told investors and analysts at a presentation.
“We’ve got the team to develop the mine here, but given its location right between Barrick’s Lagunas Norte mine and Newmont’s Yannacocha mine, it’s in a very strategic mining area.”
Lagunas Norte is Barrick’s lowest cost operation and produced 808 000 oz in 2010, while Yanacocha is the largest gold producer in Latin America.
South Africa’s Gold Fields also owns the Cerro Corona gold mine north east of Yanacocha.
“Sulliden’s already over three-million ounces in resources, and they’ve got quite a bit of potential at depth also,” Stein said, pointing out that recoveries for the sulphide ores could be greatly increased through heap leaching.
According to a presentation on Sulliden’s website, its Shahuindo project contains around 3,3-million ounces of inferred and indicated resources, and expects to conclude a feasibility study by September.
Production is planned for the first half of 2013.
Sulliden has a market value of around C$358-million.
MONGOLIAN COPPER/GOLD
Meanwhile, Stein said that Aberdeen aimed on floating a company called Temujin later in 2011 or early next year. The company owns two porphyry deposits in Mongolia that used to belong to Ivanhoe Mines, building the massive Oyu Tolgoi mine in the country, which agreed to cede them to the government in 2009.
The initial public offering would be in the “ballpark” of $15-million to $20-million, which would fund exploration expenditures for the next two years, Stein said.
“It’s still early days there.”
SOUTH AFRICAN PLATINUM
Aberdeen is also busy putting together a portfolio of South African platinum properties that it aims to list later this year, according to Stein.
“We’re still putting all the acquisitions together. Once we do, it’s something that we would want to take public right away, as we would need significant capital,” he said.
The company was busy buying two properties, one on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex, and the other on the western.
The Bushveld Complex hosts around 80% of the world’s known platinum reserves.
UNDERVALUED
Aberdeen is buying back its own shares and plans to increase its dividend in a bid to lift its share price.
Stein bemoaned the fact that the company’s share price, trading at C$0.84 apiece on Wednesday afternoon, was significantly lower than its investment portfolio’s market value of C$1.37 a share as at the end of April.
The company is also considering selling two gold royalty streams it owns in South African mines, worth some C$25-million, as it doesn’t believe its share price is reflecting their value.
Stein said Aberdeen was also planning on hiking its dividned, but wouldn’t be drawn on when and by how much. |
