Thursday, May 7, 1998
Indochina's gold loses US$90M in glister
By DAN WESTELL
The Financial Post
Indochina Goldfields Ltd. has taken a US$90.3-million writedown in recognition of the fall in value of its gold properties and investments.
But the Vancouver-based company, controlled by promoter Robert Friedland, also said its balance sheet is strong with US$66 million in cash and it expects its S&K mine in Myanmar will start producing
copper cathode on schedule in July.
The copper project, with annual capacity of 25,000 tonnes, represents a large part of the company's US$250-million-plus in assets, president Edward Flood said.
While copper prices have dropped along with gold, there was no writedown of the S&K mine. "The low cash cost protects that value even at today's prices," Flood said.
While the writedown was announced with the year-end results yesterday, the market has valued the stock (ING/TSE) as a junior gold company, knocking it down from a 52-week high of $13 a year ago
to a 52-week low of $1.80 yesterday, off 4›.
The company went public at $15 a share with a high-profile, $270-million issue in the summer of 1996.
Indochina said it wrote down the value of its 80%-owned Bakyrchik project in Kazakhstan by US$40 million. |
