Scrambling for Africa

Ian Fisher, the Zimbabwean entrepreneur who has raised £4 million at 12p on AIM for African Consolidated Resources and plans another fundraising in the autumn, is now building up the company’s resources of gold and other desirable minerals. He chairs African Consolidated, which is bidding against Zambian-born cricketer Phil Edmonds’ CAMEC group to buy another mine in its race to increase its gold resource from a last-published 821,000 oz to 1.3 million oz or more before the year is out.

African Consolidated boasts well-regarded fellow Zimbabwean Andrew Cranswick as chief executive officer and Roy Tucker, veteran of the 1980s Rossminster tax avoidance imbroglio, as finance director.  The company says its potential assets in Robert Mugabe’s fiefdom include the Pickstone gold mine, part of the original concession granted by Chief Lobengula to Cecil Rhodes, later mined by Rio Tinto and potentially hosting 1.5 million oz
of gold.

A 23-to-30 million-oz platinum group metal deposit at Snake’s Head, first drilled by Algy Cluff, nickel at Chewore and chrome all offer further potential. Fisher professes a two-million oz gold resource target and says he intends to acquire gold assets for $5 an ounce in the ground, against a $630 market price and a $100 in-ground cost in South Africa.

He insists Zimbabwe is one of the safest places in the world and is set to revive as a tourist destination.