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Welcome to Miranda Minerals |
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Written by Web Master
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Saturday, 12 June 2004 |
The South African mining scene has, over the last hundred years, been
dominated by the large mining houses. Their tight grip on mineral
rights and the limited availability of Capital have made it very
difficult for small independents to establish themselves as meaningful
players in this sector.
 By 1994, the mining houses had taken up vast areas of mineral rights,
often with little intention of developing them in the near
future. A large number of good projects were locked up
indefinitely. With this in mind, the South African Department of
Minerals instituted several changes in mineral policy in the mid 90's
to promote mineral resource development in the country.
Through the "use it or lose it" principle, the
government actively encouraged the large mining houses to unbundle
their residual mineral rights and pass them on to companies that were
in a position to add value to the properties. Mining houses
are now under moral pressure from the government to relinquish mineral
rights that they have no intention of mining in the near future.
The new political dispensation in South Africa, resulting in the
lifting of sanctions, also enabled the large mining houses to become
world players. All these mining houses ventured into Africa,
South America and elsewhere. Projects in the tens of millions of
dollars in South Africa are no longer attractive to them when there are
multi billion dollar projects available abroad.
Goldfields of South Africa Ltd ("GFSA") faced an additional
complication: it was not perceived to be a focused "mining"
house. It owned shares in banks, insurance companies.
The market found it difficult to place a value on the company (which
was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange). The Rupert family
saw no increase in the value of their investment in GFSA in the ten
years (approximately 1989 to 1998) that they were in control of the
company. It became necessary to unlock shareholder value.
All these factors resulted in a change of focus at GFSA. It was
decided to unbundle the Group. Their gold mines were merged with
those of Gencor, resulting in a dedicated gold mining company, "Gold
Fields Ltd", also listed separately. All their coal mines were
sold into GF Coal Ltd, also listed separately. Their shareholding in
the banks, insurance companies, were distributed to GFSA's
shareholders as dividends in specie. And of course, all mineral
rights that were not directly related to their core activities were put
up for sale. Miranda Minerals jumped at the opportunity and
purchased well in excess of 150,000 hectares of mineral rights from
GFSA in late 1999.
A large number of these properties have never been properly explored -
some have been in the GFSA portfolio for almost a century (GFSA was
registered in 1887). Although serious exploration by Miranda has
not yet commenced, it is already clear that there are at least a dozen
of these properties which merit serious exploration programs.
These values are projected in the hundreds of millions dollars.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 23 April 2007 )
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