drd ups stake in goldmoney.com

COMPANIES
DRD ups stake in Goldmoney.com
Posted Tue, 06 Apr 2004

Durban Roodepoort Deep (DRD) has increased its stake in leading internet-based gold marketing company GoldMoney.com to 14 percent with a further investment of $1.8-million, it was announced on Tuesday.

GoldMoney has enjoyed record growth since DRD announced its initial investment of $200 000 (1.4 percent) in January this year, said founder James Turk.

"Our customer base rose by more than 20 percent in the first quarter of 2004 to 12 000 worldwide, and we increased our holding of physical gold by 51 percent, from 66 LBMA good delivery bars to 100.

"It is pleasing that, since South African-based DRD came on board as a GoldMoney shareholder, all of the LBMA bars added to our system have been sourced from South Africa's Rand Refinery.

"There is now more than $17-million of gold circulating as digital currency within GoldMoney," said Turk.

DRD CEO Ian Murray said: "GoldMoney's success in recent months shows that, at the outset, we were right in identifying it as a suitable vehicle for fulfilling our belief in gold as money and as a means of encouraging private ownership in gold.”

"Increasing our stake was the next, logical step, and we look forward to continued growth and diversification in GoldMoney's activities in the months ahead," he concluded.

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