sydney herald 3.3.08, page-2

Monarch struggles
There's no doubt Monarch Gold has been struggling in recent times. Its quarterly report revealed the company, backed by West Australian mining identity Michael Kiernan, had taken a $7 million loan from one of Kiernan's other companies, India Resources. And last week his iron ore play, Territory Resources, was outed as having taken up more than a quarter of Monarch's recent $10 million placement.

You might think there wasn't much else for its half-year accounts to say. But unlike the quarterly cash-flow statements, the formal accounts have to receive a sign-off from auditors.

Monarch released its half-year results on Friday, reporting a $17.6 million loss, which was not unexpected.

But there were also some worrying comments involving the phrase "going concern".

Auditors PriceWaterhouseCoopers warned that the company had a working capital deficiency of $13.1 million at December 31 and that its survival depended on it raising additional funding "as and when required".