News

March 31, 2009

Griffin Mining Casts A Predatory Eye Over Ivernia’s Magellan Lead Mine In Australia

By Alastair Ford

Roger Goodwin, finance director of Griffin Mining, pulls no punches when quizzed about his company’s recent expression of interest in the Magellan lead mine in Western Australia. “It’s a great asset”, he says. “It fits in beautifully with Griffin.” So it does, or it would, if the company were to make a formal offer for Magellan’s owner, Canadian-listed Ivernia. Whether it will or not isn’t yet clear though, as there was a certain expectation on the part of Griffin that the Canadian regulatory authorities would intervene in Ivernia’s recent revaluing of US$20 million worth of its convertible notes down from US$1.08 per share to a lowly and almost derisory US$0.11 per share. They didn’t.

That leaves the Griffin board pondering its next move. But here’s how we stand at the moment. Griffin’s own bid, were it to become a formal offer, would be priced at C$0.15 (US$0.12), which still offers a premium of 25 per cent on Ivernia’s share price before Griffin’s interest in making a possible bid was announced. But for a company that has a 12 month trading range of C$1.52 to C$0.04, one wonders whether any but the shortest term investors will be looking to book profits at these levels. In...