Rich seams for Rowan

Nervous souls may voice doubts about how much longer the AIM mining boom can continue, but Bruce Rowan, the UK-based Australian investor who has played such a prominent role in it, does not share them.

Together with aggressive hedge fund group RAB Capital, Rowan is backing the float of Aussie copper, gold and nickel hopeful Regency Mining after what he describes as 'the best time I have had in my life' from September to December.

Claiming £4 million cash in his Tiger Resources vehicle and £1 million in his Starvest investment concern, Rowan is backing Regency, Tower Resources and at least two other floats and talking to others. He has also snapped up 14 per cent of Conroy Diamonds & Gold for £250,000 for its Irish gold prospects.

This is heady talk from the usually cautious-sounding Rowan, whose preference for penny shares and advantageous warrant deals is a by-word. He is reputed to be showing a profit of more than £5 million on Southern African Resources and other groups in the original Phil Edmonds stable — which provokes envious admiration from another resource sector player, Dr Bob Young, who says he has made a mere £1.2 million out of Cambridge Mineral Resources, £400,000 out of Angus & Ross and £400,000 so far on Swedish mineral prospector Beowulf.