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Gold/Mining/Energy : SOUTH AFRICAN MINING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ptaskmaster who wrote (360)	2/5/1999 2:16:00 PM
From: sea_urchin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 472

That's right. Either the company borrows the money or Placer puts it up. Interest rates in SAf are 25% pa. Or else the funds can be borrowed off-shore and repaid in the face of a constant rand devaluation of 12% plus pa. I believe the mine needs about $500m (R3bn) to bring it to full production. Additionally, about seven years of output was sold forward in 1995. (The mine had produced nothing when these deals were struck) It was a most complex series of transactions involving calls and puts on POG and on the Rand. People said that the only ones to make money would be Standard Bank, who sold the options. All this this was not included in the Placer deal. At the time, it was said that the amount of gold involved was equivalent to the annual production of Australia!! By the way, the deal was orchestrated by AngloAmerican as a prelude to a "black empowerment" take-over of JCI, the then owner of WAreas. As I explained in an earlier post, Anglo just wanted out, I'm sure as a prelude to moving their circus to London. That takeover went sour and the blacks involved were burned. Anglo made the blacks pay top prices for the stock --- they give nothing away --- and then the shares plummeted. At least, Mr K did not set it up! He arrived on the scene as a Mr Fixit to see what could be recovered from the ashes. And the rest you know .... he fixed it for himself. So, a lot of people have already made a lot of money from WAreas (actually South Deep) --- and it hasn't produced anything yet!!!