As foreshadowed in Growth Company Investor, broker Numis intends to raise £20 million on AIM for Anglo Asian Mining to develop gold and copper prospects in Azerbaijan.

Chaired by Reza Vaziri, an Iranian potentate during the Shah's reign and now president of RV Investment Group in the USA, Anglo Asian has a 30-year production sharing agreement with the Azerbaijan government to develop eight previously identified gold and copper properties on the Tethyan 'mineralisation belt' running between Turkey and Pakistan. The company says consultant Behre Dolbear reckons the properties in question hold a rich inferred resource of 2.4 million tonnes of copper and 7.6 million oz of gold, with further potential for another 10 million tonnes of copper and 45 million oz of gold – with low projected extraction costs.

The company was founded by chief executive Charles Hancock, a City corporate financier who also founded finance house Anglo Suisse Capital, which is financial adviser to Anglo Asian. Investment house Numis is nominated adviser and broker to the company, which will focus on three principal contract areas in Azerbaijan: Ordubad, Gedabek and Gosha, covering 1,062 sq km. It has the goal of 'fast-tracking' one initial project to start producing at the rate of 250,000 oz of gold a year.

Anglo Asian's board groans under the weight of political celebrities of yesteryear. Directors include John Sununu, a former Governor of the US state of New Hampshire who served as President George Bush Senior's Chief of Staff, and former UK Energy Minister Tim Eggar, ex-boss of Monument Oil and Gas and president of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce.