Aurion's future lies in these hands. A rising Gold price...

Aurion's future lies in these hands. A rising Gold price (currently $316.95 +$2.40) will also enhance Placers prospects.

Prognosis for Placer bid in Dr Warner's hands
August 9, 2002
If Terry Burgess wants know whether AurionGold can see off Placer Dome's bid he may get a good idea in the next day or two by calling on Dr Joanne Warner following her arrival back in Sydney after completing a tyre-kicking exercise of the Canadian's global operations.

Warner, who holds a PhD in solid state chemistry, is the portfolio manager of Colonial First State's Global Resources Fund, which holds just over 15% of AurionGold.

The fund, which is headed by David Whitten and recently had just under $1 billion worth of investments in listed resource companies, does not take views on commodities but looks for companies with quality organic prospects that will generate faster than the average company growth.

According to the fund, this strategy has seen it return an average 12.47% per annum over five years, outperforming the HSBC Global Mining Index by almost 7%.

Placer's operations include gold, copper and silver mines in Chile, the United States, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Australia and South Africa.

In terms of growth, Placer's Jay Taylor recently pointed to the Timmins deal - an agreement with Kinross Gold to combine the two companies' operations in the Porcupine camp in Ontario - an upgrade in reserves at the Campbell mine, also in Ontario, and additions at the Cortez project in Nevada. Plus, the stock-standard potential for exploration success.

MiningNews.net had trouble tracking down analysts in Australia that cover the stock - there are only two listed on the Placer website and both were away on site visits - but another that was familiar with the stock was not overly enthused by Taylor's suggested growth pipeline.

Still, marrying the two companies together made for a more compelling case, the analyst said. He pointed to the opportunities available in the Kalgoorlie region, where AurionGold has a huge exploration position and multiple mills to optimise and leverage off, and he noted that combined the company would have "an excellent balance sheet".

On the other hand, the same analyst was seemingly like much of the shareholders to date - unimpressed by the level of the offer.

Over to you Dr Warner.

Source: MiningNews.net