News

December 23, 2008

Pan African Needs To Keep Its London Fan Club In Touch With Events

By Charles Wyatt

The totally unselective way in which good and bad junior mining companies have been sold down the pan over the last six months is exemplified by AIM listed Pan African Resources. This has been a gold producer since it acquired Barberton Mines last year and the results for the 12 months to end June show an attributable profit of £5.46 million and earnings per share of 0.52p. So why has the share price fallen so precipitously from 8p at the beginning of the year to the current 2.15p? The answer, in part, seems to lie in a dearth of news and information which cannot be blamed on chief executive Jan Nelson as he has been very positive about ensuring that the company has a presence in London. His tutor, after all, was Colin Bird which was the first chairman of the company, and there is not much Colin needs to learn about promotion.

An experienced fund manager suggests that the problem lies with Simon Malone and Charles Needham who came on the board as non-execs to represent their company’s 53.9 per cent holding in Pan African.after Metorex sold 74 per cent of Barberton Mines to Pan African. These two have never had a happy relationship with London going back to before 2002 when the Canadian company Crew Developments halved its holding in Metorex. Messrs Malone and Needham had long claimed that  their company was...