News

October 17, 2008

Mantle Diamonds Ups The Pace And Quality Of Its Deals

By Charles Wyatt

'Festina lente’ (make haste slowly) is probably the guiding light for Rupert Baring and Lester Kemp who founded Mantle Diamonds back in 2005. At the beginning of this year the company had around £6 million in the till raised from an impressive list of investors though the company is still not listed. Just as well, some might say, as stocks of all types and persuasions have taken a battering of late regardless of underlying potential. Anyway these two have been round the tracks a few times with Lester, a geologist, having been involved in both diamond, gold and base Metals Exploration throughout Africa, South America and Western Europe for a number of junior mining companies and mining entrepreneurs. Rupert is really the diamond man as he is not only an experienced diamond broker and valuer, but has run diamond stations for De Beers in Africa. Third of the trio is Mike Brennan as technical and operations director. He has worked for a swathe of companies in Europe and is particularly skilled in the evaluation and operation of mining projects and also in mineral exploration.

An understanding of the background and expertise of directors should come first hen considering a private company. Next is the company itself which set out to focus on kimberlite projects which, though rare and expensive to develop, offer a much more consistent diamond content than alluvials. Initially Messrs Baring and Kemp were going to build a portfolio of grass roots exploration projects, but the aim has now changed to developing a strong cash flow business...