ncm currently worth $30+

The ratio of market capitalisation/reserves and resources(in USD/ounce) clearly highlights the huge discount NCM is trading at in comparison to it's North American peers and provides a rough estimate of what they would be prepared to pay for NCM.

Refer to http://www.mineweb.net/mineweb_data/ and the column, market capitalisation/P & P(proven and probable ounces).Clicking on the top of any column, will allow you to see the list in ascending or descending order.

This ratio for Newmont (in USD/oz) is $237/oz, for Barrick $170/oz and for Placer Dome $134/oz.

For NCM the ratio is just USD$64/oz.

The value of NCM is even higher given the fact that the South African gold industry is in a state of crisis due to the strong rand, and gold is set to move higher this week with the release of the PPI, CPI and balance of trade figures in the US.

Persisting high oil prices will ensure the US B of T deficits continue, the US economy will not grow as strongly as required and that inflation continues to grow at an alarming rate.

Highlighting just how ridiculously cheap NCM is relative to the North American gold producers and the importance of learning from the MIM debacle at this time is vital.Newmont has approximately 78m ounces in resources and reserves, Barrick has 68m ounces and Placer Dome 55m ounces.NCM currently has 58m ounces and this is certain to steadily increase as NCM huge exploration success continues.

Given that annual production for Newmont is over 7m ounces and for Barrick 5m ounces, both companies are very eager to add to their resources/reserves and NCM is easily the best prospective acquisition to acieve this.

Newmont, Barrick and Placer Dome must look for suitable acquisitions to bolster their respective fast diminishing resources and reserves, as they cannot achieve the necessary rate of replenishment themselves.This and NCM's low costs are the main reasons why NCM is the envy of the others.

I believe that NCM's long term organic growth and sustainability of it's earnings make it the most undervalued company in the S&P/ASX 50 by a long way, and that someone must very clearly inform the largest NCM shareholders of the huge opportunity that currently exists, to ensure that NCM is not sold out at a ridiculously huge discount to it's true value.

As the USD continues to decline against the AUD, the gold price continues to rise and the NCM share price rises further, it's clearly in the interests of the North Americans to bid for NCM sooner rather than later.All existing institutional investors should currently be aggresively buying more NCM shares so that any bid with even a chance of success must be at closer to $35/NCM share rather than $25/share.

The value of NCM will be significantly more as next year and into 2006(and beyond) as NCM realises huge increases in earnings and will have possibly the largest resouces'reserves of all gold producers globally.

NCM has a very open register and the failure of major shareholders/institutions to pro-actively address this urgent situation is consistent with Australian's propensity to sell out of their most valuable assets for nicks. The North Americans will be all too aware of this and are certain to play on this when attempting to convince NCM shareholders to accept their bid.