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Gold fund glitters in dull market Steve Johnson FT.com site; Sep 17, 2002 "Of Gold Fields , his largest holding, he says: "Two or three years ago it could be bought for the equivalent of less than $20 an ounce for reserves in the ground." Gold Fields is among the 41 per cent of the portfolio that is invested in South African-based stocks - a market that was recently hit by the release of a draft mining charter drawn up by the nation`s department of Minerals and Energy calling for a substantial transfer of mining assets to black ownership. Not good news "We were quite upset by the draft mines charter and took the view that it was not good news," Mr Birch says understatedly. "Subsequently the government has backed away and things have calmed down a bit." As a result of the uncertainty, Mr Birch said he would be looking for higher returns from South African stocks to compensate. But he argues that Gold Fields, as well as other leading South African holdings such as AngloGold and Harmony Gold , have all diversified their operations into other countries. Although North America and Australia (at 28 and 11 per cent respectively) are the next largest regions in Gold & General, there is a strong overall emerging markets bias. Despite the uncertainty this can bring, as South Africa has vividly shown, Mr Birch sees this as a positive. Licence to print money "These economies tend to have weak currencies. This is quite a good thing for a gold mine, which is a machine that prints hard currency. In a weak currency area profits are greater, as costs are in the local currency and income is in US dollars." |
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| aus der Diskussion: | Harmony Gold Mining (HGMCY) |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | peter.wedemeier1 (18.09.02 08:09:48) |
| Beitrag: | 36 von 59 (ID:7386138) |
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