Southern Africa-focused Giyani Gold said last week it was on the lookout to make a strategic acquisition to strengthen the company’s position in the region.

The Ontario-based company said that its listings in South Africa, Namibia, and Toronto gave it a strategic and competitive advantage to trade, raise capital and seek acquisitions on a broad scale throughout Africa.

While Giyani continued to actively examine and pursue acquisition targets in Africa, it had not at this time entered into any advanced-stage discussions with vendors, executive chairperson Duane Parnham said.

“This last year has been challenging for small cap equities in the mining sector, and it is our expectation that in 2014 our sector will likely continue to face similar challenges. I have led companies through these types of down-markets in the past, and my team and I have a history of maintaining and generating value in both good and bad markets,” he said.

Canada-based Giyani in December acquired a 57.7% interest in newly launched Canoe Mining Ventures, in exchange for all of Giyani’s Canadian exploration permits, which included the Abbie-Lake, the Keating and the Killins properties, as well as other minor Canadian exploration properties.

Meanwhile, the company said it would continue to conduct exploration activities on the Giyani gold project, in South Africa’s Limpopo province, while it concurrently worked towards acquiring a significant, undervalued asset that would reward shareholders as the small cap market starts to trend upwards.

Giyani is currently focused on expanding the new gold zone discovered near the historic Klein-Letaba mine, in Hole KL12-01, which included 13.162 g/t gold over 15.1 m, and drilling previously untested targets near the erstwhile Horseshoe mine.

However, all exploration programmes were contingent upon Giyani’s State- owned partner Corridor Mining Resources (CMR) paying its outstanding R2.8-million share of 2013 operating expenses and on finalising the 2014 budgets.

Giyani and CMR, which the Limpopo Economic Development Agency owns, had agreed to share all exploration expenditures incurred on the Giyani project on a 50:50 basis.

Further, Giyani is awaiting Section 11 approval from the South African Mineral Resources Department (DMR) on a transaction to acquire two prospecting rights next to the Giyani project. Giyani also has pending applications with the DMR for other prospecting rights in the Giyani greenstone belt.