News

November 05, 2008

Medusa Mining Escapes From The Clutches Of Crosby Capital, For Now At Any Rate

By Rob Davies

Shortly after the last time Minews wrote about Medusa Mining the company drew the attraction of Crosby Capital of Hong Kong which launched a hostile bid at A$1.15 a share. The bid seems to have come out of the blue, as managing director Geoff Davis says he had no inkling of it and there had been no high level contact with the company. The only time Geoff had met any representative of Crosby was when its analyst from Singapore made a site visit last year. It is doubtful if he will be invited back in a hurry.

Despite the bravado of the initial offer Crosby has now retired from the fray after announcing on Sunday 2nd November that it was not going to proceed with the offer. Given that the offer was only announced on the 19th of September this manoeuvre doesn’t immediately indicate that the fund exactly has a long term commitment to the industry. Such a short attention span isn’t really what’s needed in an industry like gold mining, which needs tolerance of long time horizons and the ability to cope...