Board dysfunction has not been an issue at another of APAC's core investments, its 14.8 per cent stake in Kalahari Minerals worth pound stg. 85.3m ($130m).
Kalahari, which controls a majority stake in ASX-listed Namibian uranium player Extract Resources, was subject to an agreed takeover offer from China Guangdong Nuclear Power earlier this year until the Fukushima nuclear disaster hurt the outlook for uranium and prompted China Guangdong to withdraw its offer.
China Guangdong is precluded from making another bid for Kalahari until August, but the group is expected to come back with a slightly lower offer for Kalahari then.
Ferguson says APAC is a willing seller of its Kalahari stake, and expects Rio Tinto, which owns the existing Rossing uranium mine near Extract's deposit, to be eyeing Kalahari and Extract.
"Rio has got a 40-year-old mine sitting 6km away, a 40-year-old pipe and a 40-year-old dilapidated plant and an open pit where they've got to spend half a billion dollars on a cutback to get to the bottom, which is half the grade of what's 6km down the road," Ferguson says. (Extract) is a much cheaper option.
"Whether they have the determination to do it, I don't know (but) the Chinese are pretty keen to secure some sort of independent energy supply."
EXT Price at posting:
$7.70 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
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