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Something to crow about

MELBOURNE-based Adelaide Crows supporter Paul Clarke has ploughed back into the market some of his windfall from Exco Resources' $135 million capital return earlier this month.

Clarke's National Health Recovery Agents (Insider has no idea whether it recovers national health, or agents) turned up with a 5.5 per cent stake in Syndicated Metals.

He spent $300,000 buying more than half that stake at the beginning of this month, taking more than a third of a placement to specialist investors and some associates of the company that raised a little more than $900,000.

Clarke's NHRA had 3.62 million shares in Exco, which made a capital return and special dividend of almost 40¢, which ought to have resulted in a cheque of nearly $1.4 million to the former Adelaide lad.

Insider suspects he must be a fan of Xstrata Resources, given that much of the money Exco returned came from a deal with the international mining group - and Syndicated Metals' sit not that far from Xstrata's Mount Isa region operations.

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