[miningmx.com] — CAPE Town-based exploration company Platfields will list on the JSE on December 14 and is looking to raise about R200m.
The listing will take place a year after the November 2009 annual general meeting, at which shareholders agreed to allocate large volumes of shares to company executives including chairperson James Motlatsi and CEO Bongani Mbindwane to meet black economic empowerment (BEE) requirements.
At that stage, the BEE holding in Platfields had dropped from 37% to 23.1% after it issued shares to acquire new exploration interests. According to a company statement, the BEE holding in Platfields is now 43%.
Motlatse is a past president of the National Union of Mineworkers. Prior to joining Platfields in 2002, Mbindwane was MD of Miya’s Fisheries.
At that meeting Platfields director Uli Schakermann told Miningmx: “We are waiting for the right moment to list. It remains our intention to list as soon as possible, but we can’t give you a date.’
Mbindwane was not immediately available for comment. In a statement released by the company, he said: “The pronounced recovery in the platinum and palladium markets particularly and gold’s historical performance mean that this is an optimal time to list.’
Platfields has three exploration projects – two of which are situated on the eastern limb of the platinum-bearing Bushveld geological complex – while the third is a gold prospect in the Sabi/Pilgrim’s Rest region of Mpumalanga.
Platfields holds new order prospecting rights over all these projects, and Mbindwane said priority would be given to the Liger platinum project which could be mined using open pit methods.
Liger is located in Limpopo Province adjacent to Anooraq Resources’ Bokoni mine.
He said current inferred resource at Liger was 1.5 million ounces of platinum group metals, while additional drilling was under way looking to add a further 6m oz to that resource.
