Ferdi Dippenaar
Photo by: Duane Daws
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The troubled antimony and gold operation Cons Murch, which is in financial distress, has begun voluntary business rescue proceedings in consultation with the Department of Mineral Resources, JSE-listed Village Main Reef said on Monday.
Its decision follows the inability of unlisted Australian suitor, Stibium Mining, to raise funds to buy the 76.6% of Cons Murch held by Village.
Stibiums’ business plan envisaged a capital injection that would result in a return of the mine to profitability.
The other 23.4% of the shares in Cons Murch are in the hands of a Cons Murch employee trust.
Village, headed by CEO Ferdi Dippenaar, is initiating business rescue under Section 129 of the Companies Act after Cons Murch was unable to meet demands for immediate payment for expenses incurred.
The Cons Burch board arrived at the conclusion that an opportunity should be given to a business rescue practitioner to develop and implement a business rescue plan that would keep Cons Murch continuing as a going concern.
The gold mined with the antimony at Cons Murch represents about 36% of total revenue.
Cons Murch was previously run for decades by Johannesburg Consolidated Investments and later bought by Metorex.
It is in the antimony line of the Archaean Murchison greenstone belt, with reserves of 26 547 t antimony and 96 000 oz gold in relatively shallow orebodies.