chairman spends $1,340,000 on market, page-2

HISTORY OFTEN REPEATS ITSELF -so for interest i have put this news item of 2003. - it will provide some explanation why streeter has been crazily buying into fxr- a company he knows inside out. In six months from now many news columns would read the same, as fear swings into extreme greed -the greed of a starved dog

Forget the nickels and dimes
By Michael Weir
Perth
October 21, 2003

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Luxury home builders, prestige car dealers and top-of-the-line real estate agents take note.

There is a new nickel boom and it has bred a new generation of nickel kings. Just as the Poseidon boom 30 years ago created a swag of millionaires, the same has happened in 2003.

The nickel price has been rising for the past two years (surging more than 150 per cent to 14-year highs of more than $US11,400 a tonne) driven by strong Chinese demand and a lack of new supply.

Equity markets, however, coming off the back of one of the worst resource downturns in decades, have just come to life in the past six months.

In that time WA's nickel companies have seen their share prices explode.

Almost all have at least doubled in value; some have done better, like explorer Western Areas, which has run from just 43� in April to $1.93 this week.

And because many directors have big direct stakes in the companies they run, the share price gains have done wonders for their personal wealth.

Such gains have also seen long-forgotten options come into the money, adding even more zeros to their wealth.

Of course this is paper wealth and, as market punters know, this can be lost as quickly as it has been made.

But let's not get pessimistic. After all there is a bull market running and many pundits reckon this is only the beginning.

Perth's undisputed nickel king is Jubilee Mines founder and boss Kerry Harmanis. With Jubilee's share price breaking through $4.50 this week Harmanis's stake in the company cracked $100 million, up from $41 million just six months ago.

Next to him the others are mere princes, despite their multimillion-dollar fortunes.

Private businessman Terry Streeter made his money as one of WA's biggest fruit and vegetable wholesalers, but for many years he has also been a big investor in the resources sector.

He is a director and big shareholder of both Jubilee and Western Areas and has seen the value of his combined stake jump to more than $52 million, from $14.5 million in April.

David Moore is managing director of Mincor Resources, the company that led the rebirth of Kambalda when it bought two of WMC 's mothballed mines three years ago. The mines have been a runaway success but only in the past six months have Mincor shares taken off, pushing Moore's stake to about $5.5 million from $1.2 million.

When Moore did the WMC deal he knew he needed local knowledge, so he turned to former WMC senior managers Ian Junk and Leigh Junk, who had years of experience in the eastern goldfields.

The brothers took a 12 per cent direct stake in the mines and ran the operations before cashing out last week for about $10 million.

They now hope to repeat their success with another two former WMC Kambalda projects for junior View Resources - and take a share of the profits.

View's involvement in nickel has led to its share price jumping from 1� to 7� in the past six months, lifting managing director Derek Lenartowicz's stake from about $400,000 to $3 million.

Independence Gold also followed Mincor's lead and bought WMC's Long mine at Kambalda.

It reopened the mine and has been delivering profits and exploration success. In the past six months its shares have jumped to $1.19 from 32�.

For founder and managing director Chris Bonwick, whose stake in the company is nudging $10 million, it has been a rags to riches story.

While the geologist admits to banking his first seven-figure cheque after being involved in the Chalice and Plutonic gold discoveries, by the time he and his team were retrenched from a struggling Resolute in 2000 he had little left.

Needing somewhere to live, but with no income, the entrepreneur made one of his first Independence presentations to a Westpac loans officer, who lent him some money "on a whim and a prayer".

"That got me a house with a great study which we worked in for that time to put the company together," he said. "I had racked up over $100,000 in credit card debts from three or four banks, and none of the banks knew about the others.

"I remember having to cash in a Medicare claim to get $40 to get a haircut to give Ranger Minerals a presentation to raise $1 million in seed capital.

"We started with nothing and worked our way through and it's paid off - we never stopped drinking wine but we got down to some pretty awful cask wines."

Mining veteran Bill Ryan, managing director of Titan Resources, has experienced every resources boom and bust since Poseidon, but says many of the spectacular recent gains have been exaggerated because share prices have come off such a low base, a result of the downturn of the past five years.

"Companies have been trading at anything from 50 per cent to 10 per cent of what they were worth," he said.

Like most miners, Ryan is a believer. Several years ago when the stock dipped as low as 8� he added a million shares to his portfolio. Last year he picked up 500,000 shares at 14�. "I think I bought them out of frustration," he said. "I just thought, this can't continue. We had some good ground and I thought sooner or later it has to come good."

And come good it has. Now the cashed-up company is working on developing some new nickel projects and has enjoyed a run from 13.5� to 50� in the past six months.

The nickel kings all play down their personal bonanza, saying they are instead focused on building the business for all shareholders.

"It's just a number - when I die I'll just have a few more zeroes in my bank account," says King Harmanis.