Ian Fisher, the entrepreneur who has raised £4 million on AIM for Zimbabwean gold prospector African Consolidated Resources (ACR), has an unusual take on the turbulent African nation. ‘We reckon it is just paradise,’ he trumpets, praising the efficiency and co-operative spirit of the Zimbabwe government’s mining department.

Born in Zimbabwe like ACR’s chief executive officer Andrew Cranswick, Fisher hopes to expand ACR’s claimed gold resource from 821,000 oz to three million oz and insists ‘we find it very easy to work with the government. Others are scared to go there, but we come from there and we see the risks as minimal,’ he adds.

Fisher says the perceived political risk makes exploration assets very cheap. ‘We have only $3.5-per-ounce discovery costs for material in the balance sheet at $30.’

As for murders of white farmers in Zimbabwe over the past year, ‘more people get killed in Los Angeles every day’, argues Fisher, whose 12p ACR float valued the company at £22.7 million following a £700,000 pre-float funding at 7p. Fidelity, Hambro, Henderson and Golden Prospect are among the groups which backed the float.

‘We are not a greenfield exploration company,’ maintains Fisher, whose finance director is ‘tax consultant’, tourism and minerals financier Roy Tucker. One of ACR’s projects, Picton, formerly belonged to Rio Tinto and another, Giant, comes from the Anglo American stable.

Investors, of course, have to weigh up risks other than those posed by RobertMugabe’s government in Harare.

African Consolidated Resources	AIM	£14.56m	6.50p	0.00p
Click here for interactive charting
Other company articles:
Still scrambling for Africa			07/02/2008
Scrambling for Africa			08/08/2006
Newcomer - African Consolidated Resources			16/07/2006
Zimbabwe float for Ofex			12/07/2006
Mugabe’s Eden			10/07/2006