News

June 02, 2008

Euromax Gains A Further Promising Asset in Serbia Courtesy of Freeport-McMoRan

By Charles Wyatt

It is usually a good thing in life to have a senior protector hovering in the background to help if things get tough. Early on it is a father or bigger brother who saves one from bullying at school. In the mining game it helps if a junior has close ties to a major producer as there are always goodies that may be handed down, or the major may come in as a partner if a project is simply too big for the explorer to bring through to development. Majors tend to be very flexible in their policies and it is this that leads to the goodies. A country may go out of favour, or a project seen as too small, and it is then that the favoured junior may get first refusal.

John Menzies, chief executive of Canadian listed Euromax Resources, agrees with this though he points out that he does not like the word juniors, preferring to call them smaller companies, and compares his activities to the scavengers who follow the bigger animals of the jungle. “If you like to call us the jackal of southeastern Europe I would have no objection as we are happy to grab the morsels that fall from the big boys.” Last year the major event for his company was the deal...