Have a look at this one for the future. It's a subsidiary of Oxus Gold which has been going great guns for the last nine months. Bill Trew has turned Oxus round since the beginning of February - asking price then 10.35, now 81 - and I bet he will do the same with Marakand. The asking price on Thursday should open at 20p, unless the MMs mess about with the price. For those of you not familiar with this opportunity I will post some more info later.

Dont forget though SB nothing comes on tap until December 2005 at the earliest.

This one is a speculators dream but I would be watching very carefully over the next 2 days. Hawick is correct, cash in on any weakness as it is obvious short term merchants are aboard and they will leave when they have made their cut.

cheers GF.

I think we'll see a sell off when the share dividend is given out to the OXS shareholders. Until then, I can't see it going below 30p bid. I will not be buying at these levels, however, thanks for the sound advice GF!

SB

when was the cut-off date to buy into oxus gold shares so as to qualify for marakand shares? does anyone know? i bought into oxus last week.

thanks

Thanks Scottie for this tip, boy am I kicking myself now, wished I had got my lazy ass out of bed this morning!!

Scotinvestor,

No it has not been decided, but will not be before January 2004.

I spoke to the company yesterday, and there has to be an EGM first, and that there has to be a 21 day advance notice of this, so realistically, that leads us into January now.

If permission is given at the EGM, (and that seems likely, IMHO!) they then have to attend court for a final ok, so mid January looks the earliest this is likely to happen.

Well, I've got my free MKD shares with IG Index too, but HERE'S the interesting thing....

I can sell them now and I can SHORT MKD if I want to!!!!!!!!!

Could create some downward pressure sooner than anticipated!!!!

I'm sure there are short term investors on board this one - but more importantly there are serious long term investors on board who have seen what has happened to the Oxus share price over the last twelve months.

Share Bear,

I agree, not much chance of a sell off of either share until the shares are handed out, and probably not too much then either.

And even then, if Oxus have completed the first gold pour on schedule, why would people sell, when this looks a decent investment in it's own right?

I think Marakand will be a hold whilst Oxus continue to fulfill their promises, and they have so far.

Bill Trew has impressed the city with the turnaround of Oxus, I'm sure he's just as anxious to make that same impression with Marakand.

I am not selling mine, MKD are a long term hold, IMHO.

Personally I think any Oxus share holder who now shorts MKD should have their head examined. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!! I agree with your comments Andy.

Looks like a lot of games with this one! Tke profits and buy yamana. Nice RNS today "transformation" of company and expecting further cost savings to improve margins in Brazil second half.

hawick I respectfully suggest if you want to keep plugging yamana - that you do it on the yamana thread! It's beginning to sound a bit monotonous on this thread.

Touchez!

Scottie,

Yes I come here to discuss Marakand too, not other shares.

I can't believe anyone that holders will short Marakand, and the price is still rising!

With such limited stock in circulation, MKD looks a reasonable bet, IMHO.

The confusion regarding the MKD share allocation to Oxus shareholders has been cleared up now - anyone buying Oxus shares today will be entitled to 1 share in MKD for every 10 of Oxus.

Scottie,

Yes, and they will until the qualifying date, which will be in 2004, imho!

I think IG Index have jumped the gun by alloting them today, as we certainly do not own them yet, because there hasn't been an EGM to approve the scheme!

And then they have to get court apporval.

My guess is allocation day will be just before court approval.

Up another 5p so far today. What do the chart experts make of this one?!!

Scottie,

On only 2 days price action, they can't!

I suppose you could say they are in an uptrend?

Gents,

A nice rise again today!

I'm not sure the market has got their heads round the value of Marakand to the Oxus balance sheet yet.

Gold $406 tonight, so looking forward to a decent monday for MKD and OXS.

I don't think anyone has got their heads round how the Marakand price has taken off. I was sitting back on Thursday thinking there would an initial burst of buying and then the price would settle back down to around 25p - wrong!

Seems like it's only going to get better!

Feature Story



Date : December 8, 2003



Marakand Minerals Shows London’s AIM Market A Clean Pair Of Heels.

The shares of Marakand Minerals, which is a split-off from Oxus Gold, hit the ground running when they listed on AIM on Friday and proved that one plus one can equal more than two. The company had raised 4 million before expenses at 20 p per share back in October through Williams de Broe who are brokers and nominated advisers. Warrants were attached which are exercisable when the shares reach 40p each and these are also now listed on AIM. At the beginning of last week Oxus shares were just over 80p each where the market capitalisation was 160 million. Ex-Marakand they advanced further to 187p, which is highly unusual after splitting off a significant asset, and Marakand shares doubled to 41p which put the warrants in-the-money from day one. The two companies are now capitalised at around 200 million which confirms that the exercise generated real value for shareholders to whom Oxus is going to distribute part of its holding in Marakand.

The success of this listing raises more than one question, but the main one is whether the price for the Marakand shares was pitched correctly. It might be argued that the shares could have been placed at 30p each, but hindsight is a great advantage. What it does do is point the finger at Collins Stewart’s listing of Trans-Siberian Gold a week earlier .The placing price for this one was 150p per share. When the brokers found they could raise more than the required 10 million they went for 16 million. The trouble was that they had used up all their ammunition in the secondary market and the shares are now languishing at a discount at 135p. It is amazing how long it takes to get a company’s shares on the move again if they have a disappointing debut.

The funds raised by Marakand will be used to complete a bankable feasibility study on the rich silver/zinc Khandiza deposit in Uzbekistan and finance pre-construction activities. This project was described to Minews by Bill Trew, the chief executive of Oxus Gold, at an interview back in June as being the jewel in the crown at Oxus. So far he seems to have found a lot of jewellery as Oxus shares have put up a remarkable performance since he and his team from MAED came aboard just over a year ago. This team has had plenty of experience of bringing gold projects in difficult parts of Africa into production ahead of schedule and below budget and have carried out a similar achievement at Oxus’s Amantaytau gold mine which is also in Uzbekistan.

Alasdair Stuart, who is chief executive of Marakand, was not hanging round London to congratulate himself. He answered his mobile from Uzbekistan and does not expect to be be back here until the end of January. As he pointed out he has plenty of work to do as the mine will be underground and the metallurgy is quite complicated. The Khandiza deposit is a volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit that contains zinc, lead and copper sulphides and associated silver and gold, although in revenue terms the deposit is essentially zinc-silver-lead-copper-gold. It is located in the Sariasia region of southeast Uzbekistan and is 50 kilometres from the regional towns of Sariasia and Denau..

The Khandiza deposit contains an audited resource above a 2% zinc cutoff of 13.0 million tonnes at an average grade of 8.3% zinc, 4.1% lead, 1.0% copper, 144 g/t silver and 0.34 g/t gold. At the end of 2002, Oxus further investigated the geological interpretation, again using traditional cross sectional and irregular blocking methods, and revised upward its internal resource estimate. Although this resource estimate has yet to be audited, WAI have discussed the reinterpretation and re-evaluation process with Oxus, and believe it is reasonable that an increase in tonnage and grade would be expected. Thus, with this revised geological model, WAI has recommended the instigation of a Datamine computer software resource evaluation as a basis for commencing a detailed mine design to full bankable feasibility study level. This work commenced at the beginning of November.

The current plan is to pre-concentrate the milled ore by dense media separation and metallurgical testwork indicates that 82.6 per cent of the zinc should be recovered to the zinc concentrate, 84.9 per cent of the lead to the lead concentrate and 82.6 per cent of the copper to the copper concentrate while 50 per cent of the silver reports to the lead concentrate and 33.8 per cent to the copper concentrate. The concentrates will then be transported to the Almalyk smelter which is near Tashkent if the price is right. The Government of Uzbekistan hopes so as it would prolong the life of the smelter. Based on the work done to date it is expected that the project will produce over 110,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate , 50,000 tonnes of lead concentrate and more than 25,000 tonnes of copper concentrate a year. A jewel indeed.


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