News

March 25, 2009

In These Bearish Times Kiwara Remains A Market Favourite, Based On The Potential Of Its Zambian Base Metals Projects

By Alastair Ford

“Kiwara is very much in play”, says Kiwara chairman Colin Bird. Colin is a wily old hand, though, and what exactly he means by this isn’t spelt out, other than in the follow-up but altogether even more vague comment, “there’s a lot of interest in Kiwara”. But anyway, you can see why there might be a lot of interest. With a market capitalization of £24 million, Kiwara is something of an oddity – an early stage exploration company that’s held its value throughout the recent market rout. Okay, at a 14.5p mid-price the company’s shares are a long way off the 35p high they hit at the height of the boom. On the other hand a £24 million market capitalization for early stage base metals projects some way off the beaten track in Zambia isn’t bad. It helps of course that Colin himself is no mean promoter when it comes to talking up Kiwara’s properties – to the point that the last time we wrote on the company we drew complaints for over-egging the pudding somewhat.

But to labour the metaphor somewhat, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and a quick look around at the company’s peers and neighbours shows a dwindling band of fellow travelers: Zambezi Resources is still just about alive, but you almost want someone to put it out of its misery, Albidon is slowly going under, Triple Plate Junction’s Zambian operations seem to have disappeared off the radar. On the plus side, Equinox is about to put its Lumwana copper mine into production – and we’ll be...