Meikles forms mining company

The company has long been reported to be eyeing the lucrative diamond mining sector. Earlier this year it applied for a joint venture in diamond mining with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation.

ZMDC is already involved in a number of joint ventures in the diamond sector in the Marange area.

“Further to the expectations announced in the recent chairman’s review, shareholder agreements pertaining to Meikles mining objectives have now been concluded.

“A new company to be named Meikles Centar Mining (Private) Limited has been formed. This company will be controlled by Meikles to ensure that the entity is compliant with the Zimbabwe Indigenisation and Empowerment laws,” the company said in a statement.

At the end of last year the company announced the formation of Meikles Resources which it said would be a holding company with subsidiaries focusing on a “particular mineral”.

The company’s Chairman, John Moxon, said then that profits from Meikles Resources would exceed those anticipated for the entire group.

Meanwhile in another sign of the liquidity constraints in the country, Bindura Nickel Corporation Limited today announced that the company had failed to raise money to finance the second phase of the restart of Trojan Mine.

“Despite making significant progress at BNC over the past year, including the completion of the financial restructuring in September 2012 and delivering the first nickel in concentrate in April 2013, the company has so far been unable to raise additional funding through debt, to finance Phase Two of the restart of Trojan Mine as previously anticipated.

“The difficulties are attributable to the negative market sentiment associated with the falling nickel price, coupled with the challenging capital markets, and this has created a funding shortfall at BNC,” the company said in a statement.

“The BNC board, together with its largest shareholder, Mwana Africa Plc are considering strategic options to preserve the integrity of the investment,” the statement said.

BNC advised shareholders to exercise caution and, where they are in doubt, to seek independent professional advice before dealing in the shares of the company “until such time as the matters currently under consideration have been finalised”.