Firestone Diamonds plc is a UK-based international diamond mining and exploration company with operations in the Namaqualand region of South Africa and Botswana. Namaqualand, which is located on the west coast of South Africa, has been one of the world's largest alluvial diamond producing regions for the past 60 years, with total production to date estimated to be worth more than $3 billion. Botswana is the world's largest producer of diamonds by value, with annual production of over 20 million carats worth over $1.6 billion.

Firestones strategy has been to build a portfolio comprising advanced development and production projects to provide sustainable cash flow to fund ongoing exploration programmes and to provide an early return on investment, together with large scale exploration projects which have the potential to yield significant reserves of gem quality diamonds.

The company operates the Avontuur Mine and the Oena Mine of Namaqualand, which produces high quality alluvial diamonds, and has a growing portfolio of advanced and early stage exploration projects in known diamond producing areas in Namaqualand and Botswana.



Since 1996 the company has increased reserves and resources more than thirty two times from 34,000 carats to over 1.1 million carats at present, with an estimated gross value of approximately 260 million. Firestone is debt free and well funded and has a highly qualified management team with extensive experience in the financing and development of diamond and other natural resource projects. Firestone is quoted on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange and trades under the symbol FDI.L.

Firestone also has an exploration project in the USA.



Main Mining Pit, Avontuur Mine, Namaqualand, South Africa.






For FDI Corporate information : http://www.firestonediamonds.com/frcorporate.htm

For FDI homepage : http://www.firestonediamonds.com/index.htm

Firestone Dimaonds shares in issue: 65m 20p Ords

Firestone Diamonds PLC - Major Shareholders

Major Shareholders ---- Amount --- % Holding
Elfin Trust Company Ltd 7,200,000 16.68
Aurora Investment Trust 7,200,000 16.68
Gartmore Investment Mgt 5,418,116 12.56

Excellent RNS this morning, BK11 looking like a mine, and MK1 under further review due to clay content offsite.

Muted market reaction, which is disappointing, but par for the course at the moment.

I hear there may be a broker note due,but it looks as though MK1 needs to generate some good news to really drive the price forward.

MK45 is looking promising, and that's a large pipe too.

What a ridiculous market reaction to some great news - down over 4% as I write! On this basis would we have seen falls below 1 had the news been bad?!

Plummeting like the proverbial stone now. Perhaps my sarcastic 1 comment will prove to be a little too near the knuckle. Completely bizarre.

Must say I agree with you queen1, would have thought the RNS would underpin the price. Still we live in difficult markets and there maybe some that wish to take profits to offset losses elsewhere. I suppose if you get a few rushing for the exit, it has a greater effect on the sp of this type of stock. sp 156p.

The market reaction to the news is what I would have expected after reading the RNS. I think the price will fall even further from here.
Why would De Beers end the JV if it was going to make them money?
IMO It will be some considerable time before FDI will make a profit worthy of the market cap of 96m.

New article by proactiveinvestors may help to dispel some of the recent gloom I think!

Enjoy!

Click HERE

Today's placing price is clearly disappointing, to say the least, and the company have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the last couple of weeks.

looking at the positives, they have at least managed to raise funds in a very difficult market, and ensure the exploration program will continue long term.

They now have to repay the city's (and ours) confidence by producing the goods!

Several bulk samples will be done during 2008, we just need one (or more!) good one, for this sad episode to be forgotten, IMHO.

I'm very dissapointed too especially as they touched 200p only a few weeks ago. But perhaps 85p will act as the floor and they can build up again from here.

queen1,

Normally (but who knows in this market?) the placing price is the floor, and support is normally found there, but we will have to see.

I have a feeling we will not have to wait too long for news, FDI's reputation has been damaged by this, they will want to fix that fast, IMHO.

We shall see Andy......

Queen1,

Can't blame you for being cnynical, they need to restore credibility now, and if you check out the numbers for BK11/16, (even the conservative numbers used), it does look it will be a mine, IMO.

Somehow they managed to wrap up an upbeat news release and make it read like it was negative, and that must not happen again.

Agreed Andy. I just hope when positive newsflow does arrive the SP will head north as fast as it tumbled south.

I am sceptical about the share price performance prior to the issue of additional shares at 85p. Looks to me that someone was in the know. Would be interesting to know what institutions sold the shares and who was allocated under the placing. Been away on holiday for 2 weeks and was surprised to see the sp back down well below 100p. If they wanted more cash, it is a pity that all shareholders do not get a look in, particularly when there are many that have been holding shares for sometime. I for one am not pleased with the management over this as they may well have got the issue away well above 100p and not diluted existing shareholding so much.

Gus,

yes a poor show here, intersting thoughts about the institutions, although the sell off volume was light.

Well can we fall any further?

A new article discusses the recent news, CLICK HERE

Down to 27p. This is just absolutely stupid.

Agree. This is a real head banger. I only had two small miners, FDI and JLP which were both going well. Fortunately, I sold JLP at 110p a while back but, decided to keep FDI which I thought would go higher. Definitely egg on face now but, with these being so bombed out and with sentiment like it is, it may be an idea to average down.

It's not egg on face Guscavalier - we're all in the same boat. The price of FDI is a travesty now and will definitely go higher (although, of course, I don't know when!).

queen1,

This is absolutely stupid now!

Not sure whether we had a seller or a shorter yesterday, but the 5K trades were what caused the drop, as the Mm's simply dropped the price as the selling continued until it stopped.

We now have a MC of 17m, and an annual profit of around 2.5m!

I personally feel this is an opportunity.

I agree Andy, it is but with my portfolio showing losses across the board and no spare cash it's one I won't be able to exploit :-(