At the risk of CP,thanks to Minesite.Its worth registering.Doesnt cost.
January 17, 2008
AIM Resources Makes Cash King
By Rob Davies
AIM Resources has had a spot of bother recently but the promotion of Bill Cash to interim managing director today, the 15th of January, looks as if it is the right move to make. AIM is the owner of the Perkoa zinc project in Burkina Faso. This high grade deposit will be mined from underground and Bill’s experience at the Lisheen and McArthur River zinc mines is just what is needed to take Perkoa forward to meet the end of 2008 early 2009 production start date. Former managing director Marc Flory will become non-executive chairman. Marc has been instrumental in driving the Perkoa project forward as well as the other African opportunities it is involved in. Right now the need, though, is for someone with the hands-on mining experience to get the mine up and running. Bill’s appointment is an interim one pending a search for a new managing director. That won’t be an easy task in today’s tight market for skilled professional staff.
When Minews spoke to Bill he had no immediate plans to travel to Africa, but he has been there several times before. His pressing task is to re-address the issue of the postponed Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) listing, the associated fund raising and dealing with the request from hedge fund North Sound to inspect the books. The full story behind all this is not crystal clear to Minews because there is a degree of coyness from the parties involved, understandably given what has happened.
In early December 2007 AIM finalised plans to raise A$25million through a convertible debentures issue and list on the TSX. Shortly after that the ASX queried its share price moves and that was followed on December 21st by an application from fund manager North Sound for a request to look at the company’s books. That was rejected by AIM although there is a court hearing on 20th February. Then, on New Year’s eve, when most people are getting into celebratory drinks, AIM said it was withdrawing its fund raising and postponing the TSX listing. It cited the discovery of material errors in the Independent Persons Report that was filed with the Canadian authorities.
Bill was reluctant to be too precise about the problem except to say that it was a consultancy in South Africa and the error was a mistake on a spread sheet. It did not concern the reserves but was related to the supporting data. More than that no one will say. Needless to say that consultancy firm has been replaced by another and Bill expects the new report in a couple of months. While all of us have made mistakes on spread sheets they can usually be resolved by some ambiguous language. ----------------------------------------------------------- 1)Rarely do they end up with changes as significant as these. ----------------------------------------------------------- Bill says the change in management is entirely logical as the impetus moves from project generation to project management. ----------------------------------------------------------- 2)He says progress on the ground at Perkoa is good under the guidance of Scott Lowe ----------------------------------------------------------- , the recently appointed chief operating officer. Now this episode is behind it AIM will be looking forward to getting back to being a mining company.
Ive highlighted a couple of quotes.
Quote 1)being an interesting little comment that I think states what we are all wondering,just why would a spread sheet mistake result in the MD moving aside.
Quote 2)Perhaps the Qtrly will give us some kind of update on just what Mr BHP has been up to at Perkoa.
I too am wondering what happened to those Perkoa assays/results.It seems very fishy that we have nothing in this regard.One wonders if they came up with nothing meaningful and are avoiding the issue after MF openly stated in the media that in his opinion a couple of the holes were going to come up gangbusters.
Once again,Hmmmmmm???
d.
AIM Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)