To: GST who wrote (78732 ) 9/27/1999 8:48:00 PM From: Glenn D. Rudolph Respond to of 164684
Stick with gold majors to catch metal bounce-funds By Brian Spoors LONDON, September 27 (Reuters) - British fund managers said on Monday sticking with major gold mine shares was the safest way to cash in on the bullion price's spectacular response to a the European central banks limiting sales from gold reserves. But the relatively illiquid nature of the market might limit major fund involvment, they said. Gold was fixed in London at $281.10 per ounce on Monday up over $11 from Friday and its highest level in over five months after the European Central bank (ECB) said its 15 member central banks would abide by a cap on gold sales of 400 tonnes a year and a total 2,000 tonne ceiling over five years. Gold mining shares were up as much as 20 percent as stock markets responded to the the news. LACK OF LIQUIDITY POSES PROBLEM "Whether investors will actually make strategic changes to their portfolios to buy gold shares is a different matter because the sector suffers from liquidity problems," said Ian Henderson who manages the 28-million-pound Save and Prosper Commodity Share Fund. "For large funds there are limited ways of getting significant amounts of money into the gold sector and you can only really look at a handful of stocks that will achieve that -- AngloGold <ANGJ.J>, Barrick <ABX.TO>, Newmont Mining <NEM.N> and Gold Fields <GFSJ.J> are the obvious names -- but obviously there are others too in Australia," he added. Analysts estimated the total capitalisation of the world's gold mining industry at between $35 billion and $40 billion -- about one tenth the size of Microsoft <MSFT.O>. "When you look at the size of the funds in the U.S, if the general funds try to get a bit of exposure in this sector, the prospect for some really sizable moves are really quite tantalising," said Kjeld Thygesen, a director of Lion Resources Management which advises on assets of close to $100 million. But, he admitted, it was pretty unlikely that major U.S. funds would pile into gold shares given the sector was tightly held with a free float of about 20-30 percent of the market. PICK BIG FIRMS OR TAKE POLITICAL RISK Thygesen said investors should stay with some of the larger, quality companies which would have liquidity or accept some more political risk by buying into gold-copper producer Freeport-McMoran <FCX.N>, which has been particularly depressed by the political upheaval in Indonesia. "It is Indonesia's biggest export earner and one of the largest gold and copper mines and it runs very well," he said. A spokesman for Mercury World Mining Trust's $250 million fund advocated specialising in shares from the world's largest producer South Africa, to take advantage of the revival. "We think there is better value and better leverage regarding the gold price there," he said. "That is really down to the fact that these South African companies have much bigger reserves, less forward selling and a lot of them have the ability to expand production if the gold price goes up as they can bring in areas which would be sub-economic at the old price," he added. Save and Prospers' Henderson had about 30 percent of his fund, which also invests in base metals and energy companies, in gold shares which was "a pretty decent exposure," he said. "There are still one or two companies which I know of out there which still represent extremely good value," he said. "If the gold price were to run up (to over $300) then there is such enormous leverage in these things which are not making any money at $250 but make a ton of money at $300," he added. Bullion prices have been crushed by actual or threatened sales from central bank reserves, which total around 30,000 tonnes of the above-ground official stocks of some 33,000 tonnes. World gold consumption is about 4,000 tonnes annually. An announcement in May by Britain that it planned to dispose of 415 tonnes of gold and use the...