News

January 06, 2009

Vatukoula Gold Mines Marches On Towards Profitability In Fiji, With One Eye On Working Capital

By Alastair Ford

Why did Dave Paxton leave a perfectly good job at Hichens Harrison to join a company that’s currently rehabiliating an ageing Fijian gold mine? One reason among many might be the 50 million options at 2p per share that he was granted upon his arrival. That’s not an outrageous amount, but it’s nice to have, although he’s going to have to more than double Vatukoula’s share price from the current 0.97p if he wants to get his options into the black. But he’s got until 2013 to do it, and given some of the metrics that he points out to Minesite in the wake of maiden operating profits from the company’s newly re-opened Vatukoula mine, there’s every chance he may succeed.

One of the jobs Dave was tasked with by the powers-that-be at Vatukoula (otherwise known as Dave Lenigas and Colin Orr-Ewing) when he took on the job as chief executive of Vatukoula Mines, itself not long re-incarnated from its old identity as River Diamonds, was to raise the company’s profile. Why, he was asked, does a company with five million ounces of gold in the ground and a 70 year operating history on its principal asset trade at such a discount? The answer, partly, was that following a...