Article from The Australian Business web site 29th December...

Article from The Australian Business web site 29th December 2008.


"Buyers line up for Matrix assets
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Sarah-Jane Tasker | December 29, 2008

Article from: The Australian
FAILED copper miner Matrix Metals has had more than 30 potential buyers express an interest in its Queensland assets.

The company’s receivers, Gary Doran and John Greig from Deloitte, said today that they had received strong interest from parities wanting to acquire all or part of the company’s assets, or participate in a reorganisation of the company.

“We have seen a really strong interest and positive response,” Mr Doran said.

“To date, more than 30 firm expressions of interest have been received, with the closing date for indicative offers on 12 January 2009.

“The interest demonstrates that there are buyers out there for good assets, and that if you are cashed up, there are certainly some good buying opportunities in the current market,” Mr Doran said.

Matrix went into administration after encountering problems over a provisional pricing agreement with Glencore International.

The administrators have managed to ensure Matrix’s existing copper assets, including the production facility at Mt Cuthbert in Queensland, were still in operation.

Mr Doran said the receivers had sold approximately 500 tonnes of copper metal since they were appointed after the company went into voluntary administration on 11 November, 2008.

The company has also retained the majority of the Matrix workforce.

“We have secured funding, continued partial operations of the Matrix facilities and have been able to generate cash flow through copper sales in the current market,” he said.

A list of junior miners have struggled to stay afloat amid plunging commodity prices and tightened credit markets.

CopperCo was another Queensland copper miner that had to call in the administrators in November, when it failed to service a debt."