British mineral explorer in Africa lists in London
10/08/2017 07:00
By Barbara Lewis
LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A British explorer for mineral
resources in Africa will on Thursday become the first venture of
its kind to be listed on London's AIM market for growing
companies, its CEO said.
Following the recovery of the mining sector from a commodity
price crash in 2015-16, a handful of new companies have listed.
But smaller exploration companies known as project
generators, which find assets but sell them on or agree joint
ventures to develop them, have generally preferred the Canadian
or Australian exchanges.
"We will be the only listed project-generator business that
has a focus on Africa," Steven Poulton, chief executive of Altus
Strategies, told Reuters. Poulton had told Reuters in May he
planned to list the company's shares. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1ID9KS
The aim is to raise 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) for
project exploration in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Morocco
and Liberia.
He describes Altus as "a counter-cyclical mining project
generator", saying its simultaneous targeting of multiple assets
offered "a portfolio approach to exploration risk".
While major miners focused on cost-cutting and recovering
from the downturn, Altus used the time for low-cost exploration,
seeking gold, bauxite, copper, iron ore, zinc and silver.
urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N1ID9KS
Supporters of Altus include Japan Oil, Gas and Metals
National Corp, with which it has a joint venture agreement on
copper development in Ethiopia, and Sprott Global Resource
Investments of Canada, which will hold around 16 percent
following the IPO.
Sprott Global Resource Investments is a unit of
Toronto-based Sprott Inc SII.TO
Altus Strategies has also partnered with Australia-listed
Canyon Resources CAY.AX to develop its discovery of bauxite in
Cameroon and has sold a gold discovery in Liberia to Avesoro
Resources ASO.TO .
The Altus listing follows three other mining listings so far
this year in London, the London Stock Exchange said.
They are Russian gold miner Polyus PLZLq.L PLZL.MM ,
listed in July, Jangada Mines JANJ.L , which is exploring for
gold and platinum in Brazil and listed in June, and Rainbow Rare
Earths RBWR.L , listed in January, which is developing a rare
earth project in Burundi.
($1 = 0.7687 pounds)
(Reporting by Barbara Lewis; Editing by David Holmes)
((Barbara.hm.Lewis@thomsonreuters.com; +44 207 542 2932;
Reuters Messaging:
barbara.hm.lewis.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
Keywords: ALTUS IPO/