STAFF WRITER
With its main assets being the single largest gold producer and the largest nickel miner in Zimbabwe, ASA Resources, which is currently under administration, remains an easy target for acquisition.
ASA was placed under administration last year following shareholder wrangles that also involved charges of financial impropriety and externalisation. The company’s listing on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM was cancelled in January 2018.
Since then interested investors have put in bids for the company, which turns over in excess of $120 million annually largely from its two main assets, Freda Rebecca Gold Mine and Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed Bindura Nickel Corporation.
It also holds Zani-Kodo gold exploration licenses in DRC, which are in highly prospective greenstone belts, a highly prospective copper exploration in DRC with 38 percent free-carried interest with JV partner Hailiang, the largest copper tube manufacturer in the world. ASA also has multi-diamonds interest in South Africa, Angola and DRC.
The resources company this year announced entering into exclusive negotiations with Pan African Resources, a South African gold ore mining company, in relation to acquiring certain of the assets and liabilities of the group, which if successfully concluded may have a material effect on the price of the company’s securities. The negotiations were however not successful.
Richpro, a Chinese investment vehicle, has its proposal to capitalise and take over the assets hanging in the air as some of the key shareholders believe that the vehicle is linked to one of the fired executive directors.
More recently however Oliver Chidawu, a local businessman, had his $30 million offer for ASA thrown out for being too low. Chidawu made the bid through his investment vehicle, Gombe.
Chidawu confirmed to Business Times that he made an offer which has since been rejected by the resource group’s United Kingdom based administrators.
“Yes it’s true we submitted our offer of around $30 million through our vehicle called Gombe. We couldn’t match what was being offered by other bidders and we were not successful. So we will not be submitting a new bid because submitting an offer is determined by the funds available.
“At the time that we submitted the bid we had sought the security of Kenneth Musanhi who already is a shareholder in Freda Rebecca, a gold producing subsidiary of ASA,” said Chidawu.
Chidawu is a major shareholder in Bitumen Construction Services and a former shareholder in BancABC.
Meanwhile, well-placed sources told Business Times that Musanhi through his vehicle, Suncraft Enterprises (Private) Limited withdrew a case he was suing ASA Resources for not giving regard to minority shareholder’s pre-emptive rights.
Suncraft is a 15 percent shareholder in Freda Rebecca Gold Mine.
