My holding of SRB comes from a holding of Buka shares that I...

My holding of SRB comes from a holding of Buka shares that I have held for some years. RCdC and co took control of the company in February 2004, and frankly, the share price performance since then has been very disappointing, especially in a booming resources market.

One piece of good news has been the XStrata takeover of Falconbridge which should result in a rational development plan for Lady Loretta involving processing through the Mt Isa facilities.

Buka sold 75% of Lady Loretta to Noranda some years ago. Noranda were very keen to develop a stand-alone mill at site, but that delivered far less attractive returns for shareholders than trucking ore to Mt Isa.

Noranda was taken over by Falconbridge, which in turn has now been taken over by XStrata. XStrata has real incentive to rapidly develop a mine at Lady Loretta to access the high grade ore to displace the low grade material it is processing at Mt Isa.