News

October 27, 2008

Royalties Are The Name Of The Game As Anglo Pacific Steers Towards The Perfect Storm

By Alastair Ford

Matthew Tack, the man in charge of the money side of things at Anglo Pacific, doesn’t mince his words about how it looks outside the window: “The market in general seems in a bit of carnage”, he says. Not many dissenters on that, one would have thought, but all is not quite yet lost as far as Anglo Pacific is concerned. The company’s shares have held up comparatively well over the last couple of months. Sure at 117p, the company’s shares have halved from the highs of around 250p reached over the summer, but compared with some companies that are sitting on a share price declines of 90 per cent or more, that’s not too bad. That 250p high was based on the huge bullishness about the coal price that pervaded the market for the first part of the year, but even allowing for the sharp correction in Anglo Pacific’s shares which began in the autumn, this is a company that has still built value steadily over the years, and if Matthew and his boss Brian Wides have anything to do with it, will continue to do so even in the current difficult environment.

The company has several things going for it. As an investment company it’s sitting on heavy losses on its equity portfolio – who wouldn’t be? – but there’s more to Anglo Pacific’s investment strategy than equities. Indeed, it’s been selling down some of its holdings for quite a while now, the most notable being Platinum Australia. Anglo Pacific’s selling of Platinum Australia looks shrewd in light of the major decline in Platinum Australia’s shares that followed, but actually, according to...