Pre-Close Trading Update
Golden Prospect Precious Metals Ltd
21 January 2008
Pre-Close Trading Update
The information that follows is un-audited and subject to change
The Board of Directors ('the Board') of Golden Prospect Precious Metals Limited
('GPPM' or 'the Company') would like to take the opportunity at the end of
GPPM's first complete year of operation to thank its investors for their support
and to provide an outline of the current investment position and trading during
2007.
The GPPM portfolio contains a diverse range of holdings from large international
corporations in production to small regional companies actively developing
defined mining projects through to production. At 31 December 2007, GPPM held
investments in 47 companies with 46% of the gross assets invested in companies
with a market capitalisation greater than £250 million.
At 31 December 2007, the top ten holdings were:
Company Value (£) % Gross Assets
Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation* 2,298,865 13.6%
Lihir Gold Limited 1,061,577 6.3%
Resolute Mining Limited 1,037,331 6.1%
Jubilee Platinum PLC 985,500 5.8%
Mano River Resources Inc 978,535 5.8%
Great Panther Resources Limited 808,043 4.8%
Gold Resource Corporation 655,581 3.9%
Centamin Egypt Limited 585,000 3.5%
Pan African Resources PLC 540,000 3.2%
Mintails Limited 533,729 3.2%
9,484,160 56.0%
Note: GPPM was originally a shareholder in both Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation*
and Bolnisi Gold NL. Following the former's acquisition of the latter for shares
in December 2007, GPPM owned 932,000 shares in Coeur d'Alene which at 31
December had the value of £2,298,865. GPPM has since sold 332,000 Coeur d'Alene
shares, reducing its holding to 600,000 shares (£1.48 million).
At 31 December 2007, GPPM's portfolio by sector (allocating each investment
entirely to the company's primary resource, except as noted below) was:
Gold 63%
Silver 17%
Platinum and Palladium 7%
Diamonds 4%
Uranium 8%
Cash 1%
100%
Note: The allocation of Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation, Mano River Resources
Inc and Mintails Limited was divided between their respective two main
resources.
During much of the first half of 2007, the Company's shares traded at a premium
to its Net Asset Value ('NAV') and were always comfortably above their November
2006 issue price of 100 pence per share. The premium to NAV reflected the high
level of interest in GPPM by key investors and interest in the commodity sector
in general. The US sub-prime mortgage crisis reversed this situation from August
2007 onwards. The blind sell-off in July and August particularly hit small and
medium capitalised companies as well as many mining and commodity related
equities. The net result was that GPPM's NAV declined to 93.61 pence per share
by 31 August 2007, its lowest published level since launch.
During the remainder of 2007, GPPM's NAV improved with the rising prices of the
underlying precious metals. A deterioration in stock market conditions in
December resulted from renewed sub-prime and credit crisis fears, again affected
the precious metals sector and prevented a stronger than anticipated rise. These
same conditions also caused the Company's own share price to decline during
December. GPPM's NAV at 31 December 2007 was 111.22 pence per share and the
mid-market share price was 96.5 pence - a share price discount of 13.2% to NAV.
The Board and Investment Manager believe that the strong gold price will
continue for the foreseeable future and that this will in turn feed positively
through into the NAV performance.
The Board is actively working with Ambrian Asset Management Limited, GPPM's
Investment Manager, to increase the profile of the Company with a view to
improving its liquidity and narrowing the share price discount. Further
announcements regarding these activities will be made in due course at the
appropriate time.
GPPM will publish its audited results on or before 31 March 2008 to cover the
period from its incorporation on 16 October 2006 to 31 December 2007.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
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