Companies: BNC   

Shares in Brancote Holdings (BNC), the Aim-listed mining hopeful involved in a 2.7 million ounce gold project in Argentina with Aussie tycoon Kerry Packer and others, have plunged 26 per cent today to 167.5p on the ending of talks with potential bidders. Robert Tyerman reports.

Brancote chairman Richard Prickett put on a brave face this afternoon on the collapse of the bid talks. 'We are carrying on drilling, we have got the funds to go it alone and the project goes on getting better and better', he insisted cheerfully.

Brancote has 60 per cent of the Minerva El Desquite gold project near Esquel in Argentina. Interested parties, believed to include such mining leviathans as American Barrick and Goldfields, put in indicative bids last week, but Brancote rejected them as too low. The company says that its partners in the Minerva El Desquite project, who include Kerry Packer and local interests, agreed that it would be better for Brancote to proceed on its own - for now. Prickett says there are funds to carry it through phase three to phase four of the drilling programme, which, supporters hint, may show a bigger potential resource than the currently estimated 2.7 million ounces.

Prickett refused to say how much the bidders had offered and how much more was wanted. 'Perhaps they thought they could get the better of smaller companies', he suggested.

Investors, including several institutions with long term stakes, have backed Brancote largely because of the bid prospects which have been dangled before them for months. They could well turn nasty unless persuaded that the company really can do better on its own.

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Banco Santander SA	LSE	£1273.32m	500.50p	-19.00p
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