Central African Mining & Exploration (CFM), Is anyone holding these shares? Just been looking and these seem like a good investment. There is a lot of demand for Cobalt in China at the moment and this company is going to start production in Oct this year.

What are your opinions on this?

Cheers.

Business Report - South Africa's National Financial Daily - September 3, 2006

Camec's revenue from DRC dries up - By Peta Thornycroft


Lubumbashi - The revenue of the Central African Mineral Exploration Company (Camec), the principal mining venture of former British test cricketer Phil Edmonds, has largely dried up.

Camec's shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) rose dramatically by a staggering 900 percent plus, from about 12p (R1.62) in January, to a peak of 97p, after it bought a marketing company called Congo Resources Joint Venture (CRJV) from a Zimbabwean businessman, Billy Rautenbach.

An international warrant of arrest was issued for Rautenbach earlier this year as he is wanted by South African police on charges of massive fraud. Rautenbach is close to top officials in President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

CRJV's main activity was the sale of cobalt produced by Mukondo Mine in Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

But excavation of cobalt ore from Mukondo Mine ceased last month when Rautenbach ordered a stop to mining. Camec's chief executive, Andrew Groves, angrily refused to discuss why Rautenbach shut down Mukondo Mine.

"This is a private matter. Why are you asking?" Groves said before hanging up.

Sales of ore from Mukondo Mine, arguably the richest cobalt deposit in the world, made up about 80 percent of Camec's income.

Earlier this month analysts from Credit Suisse group's London office gave Camec an overweight rating and a 12-month price of 1 based on its projected production of cobalt and copper.

Credit Suisse owns 6 percent of Camec. Company spokesperson Jack Grone declined to comment.

Camec's weakness is that it does not own mineral deposits in the DRC. It only owns the offshore marketing company CRJV, for which it raised about 60 million in February and July to buy out Rautenbach.

Camec purchased the first chunk of Rautenbach's marketing company, which is the revenue stream from Mukondo Mine, in February.

When criminal charges against Rautenbach became public knowledge through press reports, Grove and Edmonds shrugged it off as "political".

Rautenbach's prime asset in the DRC is a half share of Mukondo Mine. The other half of Mukondo Mine was sold in June for about $60 million (R425 million) by another Zimbabwean businessman, John Bredenkamp, to an Israeli mineral conglomerate called Dan Gertler International Group, which already has substantial mining properties in DRC.

Rautenbach had rented and operated cash-strapped Bredenkamp's half of Mukondo Mine, which allowed him to extract ore, process it into concentrate and sell it, mostly to China.

But then Dan Gertler wrote to Rautenbach informing him that he would, in terms of the agreement between the two Zimbabweans, take possession of his half of Mukondo Mine on July 16.

Rautenbach, allegedly in a fury at losing control of the whole mine and incurring the increased costs that mining only one half of the mine would bring, stopped extracting ore altogether.

The Gertler Group can afford to wait until Rautenbach regains his composure, according to mining analysts in Katanga.

Rautenbach's other copper and cobalt deposits in the DRC are largely undeveloped, and his concentrator is now processing small stockpiles of lower quality cobalt ore.

According to mining analysts in Lubumbashi, Camec sold about 700 tons of cobalt in July before Rautenbach closed the mine down.

Rautenbach is under an employment contract to Camec to run Mukondo Mine, and commutes weekly from his Harare estate, where he lives, to the DRC, in his jet.

Camec has not yet informed shareholders that the marketing company it bought, the largest part of its operations in the DRC and its only serious revenue from its African portfolio, has ceased producing revenue.

Edmonds and Groves' other African interests include the White Nile Sudanese oil concession, which is disputed, and its major acquisition, coal deposits in Mozambique, which are still at the exploratory stage.

Camec's shares on the AIM were trading at 52.5p last week.

With firming base metal prices internationally, several large international mining companies invested heavily in the DRC ahead of its first elections in 40 years on July 30. - Independent Foreign Service

Central African Shares Fall as Mukondo Mine Suspended

By Antony Sguazzin

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Shares of Central African Mining & Exploration Co., a company led by former England cricket captain Phil Edmonds, fell after it said production at the Mukondo copper and cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo was suspended.

The statement to London's Regulatory News Service confirmed a Sept. 4 report in Johannesburg's Business Report newspaper. In the same statement, the company said it ``refutes'' the article, which said the closure had shut off most of Central African's revenue.

``Mining at Mukondo, where CAMEC has a 50 percent interest through its subsidiary CRJV, has been suspended until agreement can be reached with the new owners of the remaining 50 percent on how best to develop the concession,'' the company said. Its other mining concessions in Congo include those known as C19 and C21.

Shares of the company fell 1.25 pence, or 2.4 percent, to 51.5 pence in London, after earlier dropping as much as 8.1 percent. That valued the company at 569.7 million pounds ($1.08 billion).

The London-based company took total control of Congo Resources Joint Venture, which has the right to half of Mukondo's output, from Majestic Metal Trading Ltd. on July 28. Majestic's owners include Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach, an adviser to Central African.

Rautenbach is under a contract to Central African to run its 50 percent interest in Mukondo and had rented and operated the other 50 percent from John Bredenkamp, another Zimbabwean businessman, before it was sold to the Gertler Group of Israel, Business Report said. Rautenbach suspended production after the sale, the newspaper said.

Bredenkamp declined to comment when called yesterday. Hugo de Salis, a spokesman for Central African, said he couldn't say whether Mukondo had been suspended yesterday.

Because of the content contained within the above two postings (18 + 19), the share price of this company can be expected to fall quite dramatically over the coming weeks. There may be arguments and counter-arguments but as we all know there is really 'never any smoke without fire'. In January this year the share price of this company was just 12p and if the above allegations are true then it will fall below even that price. After all, if a company's scource of income is suspended then that company loses any future profits and is rendered worthless. It was only recently that iSoft also experienced company disputes - and the share price of that company went from 460p to 50p. Anyone presently holding shares in CFM should give serious consideration towards selling them.

Ah, here you are ET. Given up trying to ruin the VED party and started on CFM have we.