samsims's Profile
samsims's Posts
Atticus Spinoff Attara To Close Doors
Feb 28 2012 | 11:31am ET
Atticus Capital spinoff Attara Capital is reportedly closing its doors due to difficulty raising assets and an inability to gain traction in the current economic climate.
A source familiar with the hedge fund shop told FINalternatives that Attara, founded by David Mark Slager and Nathaniel Rothschild, would wind down operations in April.
Attara rose from the ashes of Timothy Barakett’s Atticus Capital in 2009. Atticus, begun in 1996 with $6 million, peaked at $20 billion AUM in late 2007. In 2009, Barakett announced he would return outside capital to investors and wind down the Atticus Global and Atticus Trading funds. According to the Wall Street Journal, Barakett returned about $3 billion to investors.
Slager, a partner at Atticus and sole portfolio manager of the $1.2 billion Atticus European Fund, co-founded Attara Capital with former Atticus co-owner, Nathaniel Rothschild to manage the Atticus European Fund which they renamed the Attara Fund.
The news follows the closure earlier this month of Atwater Capital, founded two years ago by Atticus Capital vets Lee Pollock and Kris Green.
Attara did not return calls for comment
Middle East troubles help fire up interest in local phosphate
COINCIDENCE it might have been, but three companies flicking phosphate projects in the same week was a signal things are moving in this sector.
Not only that, but exploration veteran Joseph Gutnick is gearing up to float a new phosphate play here (called Paradise Phosphate). There'll be a Singapore phosphate float here, too.
Meanwhile, phosphate rock prices are being underpinned by continuing troubles in the world's prime producing region. Mines in Syria are still closed, the Saudis still haven't got their latest project running to full capacity, and Tunisia's production is lagging.
In fact, mines in Tunisia have been working at about a quarter of capacity since the uprising and it's reported state-owned Compagnie des Phosphates de Gafsa has been experiencing dislocations to production due to continuing unrest, something possibly of interest to shareholders in Celamin Holdings (CNL), which has its phosphate eggs in the Tunisian basket.
The main downside at present is demand falling in some parts of the world, especially India. But back to last week's developments.
GBM Resources (GBZ) got the ball rolling by selling its share of a Queensland phosphate deposit to a Singapore company, preferring to focus on its Milo copper-gold and rare-earth ground. A condition is that the Singapore company lists on the ASX because payment is in shares and these will be distributed to GBZ holders.
Mantle Mining Corp (MNM) is unloading its Barkly phosphate tenements in the Northern Territory. The buyer is an unlisted Brisbane company focused on fertiliser minerals. After its global financial crisis buffeting, Mantle decided to focus on coal and gold, putting phosphate and uranium on the back-burner.
The third move was from South Boulder Mines (STB) which has its hands full with its huge potash deposit in Eritrea. It has divested 80 per cent of its non-core Cardabia phosphate project in Western Australia to a Toronto-listed vehicle, Strata Minerals. And therein lies a story.
Strata is actually an Australian company, based in Perth and with all its phosphate projects in this country.
Chief executive Nigel Gellard tried a $3 million float here back in 2010 but interest was minimal, so he backdoor-listed through a Canadian company and was welcomed with open arms. He says one of the big selling points to Canadian investors is the phosphate's proximity to the Asian market. He's as big a believer in the fertiliser story as ever and Strata doesn't muck about: the deal was announced on Friday and the Cardabia project is already featured on its website.
Gellard says the project appealed because of its logistics -- it's only 80km from Exmouth and a highway and gas pipeline run by the property -- and the old and legendary CRA Exploration sank 74 holes there and hit phosphate in many of them.
Perhaps one day, when Australian investors get more enthusiastic about fertiliser and the world food crisis, Strata could be tempted to dual list here.
Gutnick's Legend International, which is traded over-the-counter in the US, is coming home with an IPO for its Paradise phosphate project near Mt Isa. It is an advanced project, tender documents for a mine development and plant having already been sent out. The plan is to process one million tonnes a year of phosphate rock.
Andrew Drummond at Minemakers (MAK) is as keen as ever about phosphate. While he continues to work with a Bombay Stock Exchange-listed company to get the Wonarah project off the ground, he wants full control of the Sandpiper marine phosphate project in Namibia by taking over partner UCL Resources (UCL).
Into Africa
ANOTHER one in the eye for the gold Jeremiahs and their continuing lamentations. Global demand last year totalled 4067 tonnes, a great deal more than the 2809 tonnes the world's mines were able to pump out, the World Gold Council says. Chinese demand was up 20 per cent and there was an enormous surge in investment buying out of Switzerland and Germany.
London-based Ocean Equities released its update on the African gold story. The theme this time is that, while West Africa has matured into a gold production region, it is time to turn attention to the other side of that continent.
Despite civil unrest in Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, Ocean Equities believes the market is applying a much larger risk premium to East African stocks, a number of these stocks being unfairly discounted. Yet several explorers are expected soon to announce studies that will demonstrate the gold potential of the region.
Its interest is the Arabian-Nubian Shield, which underlies Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Large areas are now being explored. Sudan is welcoming gold explorers, looking to that metal as one revenue substitute for the oil money that has gone with South Sudan.
Ocean Equities believes Nyota Minerals (NYO) will become the first public company to receive a mining licence in Ethiopia. While its Tulu Kapi gold resource stands at 1.46 million ounces, the analysts believe the economics of this project could be supplemented with ore coming from Nyota's other nearby high-grade deposits.
Forge makes progress
NICK Curtis has been in the limelight with his emerging rare earth producer Lynas Corp (LYC) but his other company, Forge Resources (FRG), has also been making progress.
Earlier this month it announced a maiden resource at its Eucla West mineral sands deposit in Western Australia, and on Friday shared the joy with its partner Capital Mining (CMY) over some pretty encouraging hits near Braidwood, east of Canberra.
Drilling at the Mayfield project included 20m at 6.86 grams/tonne gold (starting just 10m from surface) and 35m at 14.7g/t silver and 2.57 per cent zinc.
Capital, the only listed mining company based in our nation’s political nerve centre, has been waiting a while for a little market spotlight. This did the trick, the stock up 69.2 per cent on Friday.
I think that's wishful thinking. Seems like people are just jumping ship.
Who would bother applying for the tender at this point.