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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (17472)	4/9/2008 11:03:40 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 194504

UPDATE 1-Chilean junior miners seen listing shares abroad Mon Apr 7, 2008 7:09pm EDT reuters.com (Adds head of Chilean bourse, paragraphs 5-6) By Terry Wade and Magdalena Morales SANTIAGO, April 7 (Reuters) - Half a dozen junior mining companies with projects in Chile probably will list shares this year on stock exchanges outside the South American nation, a lawyer for mining companies said on Monday. He said they would try to raise between $40 million and $350 million from initial share offerings for copper and gold projects, mainly on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada. "We will see five to seven juniors list this year. It's quite a complex process, because it costs about $1 million in listing fees," said Antonio Ortuzar, a partner at law firm Baker & Mackenzie. Industry professionals at the CESCO/CRU copper conferences complained that even though Chile is the world's top copper producer, local institutional investors shy away from investing in mining companies on the Chilean stock exchange, whether they are juniors or established players. "One of the challenges is to create a critical mass, and have the strategic support of the state with some of the principal companies of the mining sector, like Codelco or others," said Jose Antonio Martinez, chief executive of the Bolsa de Comercio stock market in Santiago. Chile's state-owned Codelco, the world's biggest copper producer, is an unlisted company. Neighboring Peru, in comparison to Chile, has several dozen mining companies listed on the bourse in Lima. Banks are sometimes unwilling to lend for long-term, speculative projects in Chile. That forces junior miners to rely on financing from established miners, investment funds, or increasingly foreign bourses. The newcomers would join 12 to 15 Chilean juniors that have listed abroad in the last couple of years, Ortuzar said. He did not name the companies expected to list. Credit trouble stemming from the sub-prime crisis in the United States has not slowed new listings. "There hasn't been any slowdown in listing up to now," he said at the CESCO/CRU copper conference in Chile, the world's top copper producer. Others said Chile's institutional investors must be persuaded to invest in junior mining projects, and that companies should list on two exchanges at once, say in Canada and Chile, to tap into the widest pool of investors possible and boost shares prices and liquidity. "To stimulate exploration, small and medium miners need to know about the best financing alternatives available in the international market," said Antonio Cussen, a partner at CeltaMetal, a consultancy for mining companies. (Editing by David Gregorio)