Gord,
OFF TOPIC-SUF
FWIW, here is a comment I made earlier....I'm keeping my powder dry on this one for the time being....
Author: teevee --
Date:1999-04-18 07:33:03
Subject: heads or tails?
jspec, At this time, many
South African individuals
and companies, large and
small, are trying their best to
divest from South Africa.
The reasons for this are
many and moot, however, I
believe that South African's
know their own country and
situation better than
others......consequently, we
have seen for example,
companies like Placer Dome
buy into large proven gold
reserves for what seems a
very attractive price.....and
now SUF may buy some
PGM "assets".......given
what DeBeers did to SUF
at Marsfontein, and who
SUF's new partners are, it is
clear to me that Chris
Jennings has decided to
throw in his lot with the
black South Africans.....this
move is clearly "against the
grain", and as inferred from
the market activity in SUF
shares, institutional holders
of SUF apparently don't like
the strategy or the
implications(in the short
term, they correctly
anticipate previous owners
of the PGM company will
effectively have transferred
assets out of SA by selling
to SUF, and will very likely
be selling their new found
SUF paper on the
TSE).........also, SUF can
now claim that they are
re-investing diamond profits
in South Africa, this
probably has important
political implications
regarding their relationship
with the South African
government which is in
transition.
IF South Africa continues to
deteriorate, purchases of
resource properties will turn
out to have been a
mistake....on the other hand,
if South Africa stabilizes, it
could work out in the
medium to long term.......No
matter what happens,
markets apparently don't
like uncertainty so I don't
see a positive outlook for
SUF in the short term......
regards, teevee
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