Fox Marble (22p and 2.0% of JIC portfolio). I have just bought a holding in Fox Marble (FOX). It is listed on the AIM market and has a market capitalisation of £24m. The Chief Executive, Chris Gilbert and Managing Director, Etrur Albani (holds both a Kosovan and British passport) each own just under 17% of the company. It has an impressive Board; it is chaired by Andrew Allner, who is also Chairman of Marshalls and Go-Ahead. Chairman of Meggitt, Sir Colin Terry and Roy Harrison, former CEO of Tarmac, are non-execs. I hope to be indebted to friend and former colleague, David Thornton who brought this to my attention in the December edition of Red Hot Penny Shares, where he was recently appointed editor.


Fox owns and is developing marble mines in Kosovo for export. It has current indicated resources worth €16bn based on an indicated 91.3m cubic metres of reserves. (On top of that Fox also has access to a further 235m cubic metres of inferred reserves). Mining marble is a fairly simple process and as such upfront investment is relatively small. It is investing in a processing plant to enhance the value of its product by cutting the blocks into polished slabs before shipping. The uplift in value is huge with the value of a one cubic metre block rising from around €400 to €2,100 when processed into finished slabs. The bulk of investment has been made with the completion and equipping of the processing plant outstanding. It has a strong balance sheet; in June net cash stood at €5.3m and it subsequently raised €2.9m in August.


The main markets are US, which imports 15% of world production, roughly the same for the whole of Europe and then the Middle Eastern markets; Saudi Arabia and the UAE.


Kosovo has clearly had a troubled recent history but has a government which has adopted an EU based legal system and has adopted the € as its currency. Fox has good relations with the Government who are clearly keen on the inward investment, employment and the high profile of a London listing the Fox brings. Royalty rates on extracted marble are only €0.5 per cubic metre as the Government is keen to attract inward investment into the mining industry.


Quarrying at four sites started this year and shipping of “blocks” has already commenced and will increase into…

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