Companies: AAA    CLIO    MWA    POG    PWC   

Fox-Davies Capital is planning to raise £40 million on AIM at 67p for Cadogan Petroleum, a Ukraine-focused near-term oil and gas producer run by former JKX country manager Mark Tolley, which can expect a warm reaction in today’s climate of scarcity and high prices. This follows another Fox-Davies commission, to float South Africa’s Nare Diamonds, which recently found a 135-carat stone after Lonrho Africa bought a pre-AIM float 17 per cent at 10.5p.

Aussie entrepreneur Keith Liddell’s Mineral Securities is lining up Tianshan Goldfields for AIM. Broker Collins Stewart is bringing Down Under listed iron ore play Cape Lambert to AIM and should win it friends. Petroworld, recently suspended at 30p as it moved to amalgamate its oil and gas assets in Thailand, has some interesting prospects there and could repay attention.

An apatite for London

Australian-listed Monto Minerals plans to raise £17 million on AIM to develop an apatite, ilmenite and feldspar at Goondicum in central Queensland. These are ingredients variously used to make malting barley, toothpaste, paint and glass.

Managing director Geoff Moore formerly of Consolidated Rutile, one of Australia’s largest industrial producers, believes Goondicum could yield 150,000 tonnes of industrial minerals from 1.3 million tonnes of mineral sands annually for 25 years. He says £17 million should be enough to start production in the first quarter of 2007 and suggests Goondicum could be ‘cashflow positive’ in its second year of operation.
Monto trades at the equivalent of 14.5p Down Under. It will be worth watching out for after it floats on 18 May.

Expansion plans at Mwana

JP Morgan Cazenove is seeking £43.5 million at 65p to fund acquisitions for ambitious mining hopeful, Mwana Africa. AIM-quoted Mwana, formed last year by the reverse takeover of Mwana Africa Holdings by Irish entrepreneur John Teeling’s African Gold, wants the money to clinch two potential asset acquisitions to add to its present African holdings. These include the Bindura nickel and Freda Rebecca gold mines in troubled Zimbabwe (once held by Cluff Resources) and its Anmercosa copper and gold joint venture in Congo’s mineral-rich Katanga province.

Chaired by ex-African Gold chairman Oliver Baring, Mwana Africa is the creation of entrepreneur and chief executive officer Kalaa Mpinga. His backers include David Fish and Tim Waddesdon of South Africa and ‘prominent’ members of the business communities in Angola, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Claiming to be ‘the first African-owned and managed resources business quoted in London’, Mwana says it made takeover approaches to fellow AIM counter and Congo-focused copper tailings concern Adastra Minerals.

In the event, Mwana was forestalled by the successful £140 million Adastra bid from copper star First Quantum Minerals. A successful placing would add 37.2 per cent to the capital of Mwana Africa, whose shares, now 68p, have swung between 7.5p three years ago and 147.5p in early 2004. Their appeal is decidedly speculative.