News

November 06, 2008

Great Panther Is Still Mining Profitably Out In Mexico, But There’s No Denying The Squeeze Is On

By Alastair Ford

“The funds are long gone”, says Bob Archer, chief executive of Canadian silver miner Great Panther Resources. “But the retail guys are still around”. That’s as true in the Canadian markets as it is in the UK, although of course in Canada the retail base is a bit wider and the support a bit deeper. That's the theory at any rate, but there’s no sense in not casting your net as widely as possible, hence Bob is on one of his regular update tours of Europe, designed to keep investors in Great Panther fully up to speed with developments. He’d have liked to have been raising money right now, and would certainly be doing so if commodity prices had remained up where they were when the company put together its plans for this year back at the end of 2007.

But they’re not and he isn’t. The funds are “gone”, and, according to what one London broker told Bob, won’t be back for at least six months. If they’re back in a meaningful way before then, we at Minesite will be very surprised, but we won’t be that surprised if it actually takes a lot longer. That just leaves the retail guys to hold up the market, and although there has been a bounce, retail just doesn’t bring enough real muscle to turn the whole ship around. So Bob’s not raising money for...