Results season

The 1q09 results are coming in among the miners. Here are a couple that caught my eye.

1) New Gold (NGD) which has always been a bit of an underachiever, put in a nice quarter and beat all estimates (including my own, and by some way) by posting a 6c EPS. However that total includes a $10.1m one time gain on a bond (well, secured notes to be exact) buyback. The fusion with WGW is on track. NGD popped 10% yesterday and has its CC this morning.

2) Amerigo Resources (ARG.to) posted a $4.78m loss for 1q09 that isn't a surprise to anyone, but is guiding positively for the rest of the year. This will be good news for at least one regular reader of IKN (hi "A" :-).

In The IKN Weekly this weekend I'll be including a NOBS report on New Gold (NGD), bang up to date and including analysis of the latest quarter. Another reason to come aboard if you haven't already. So if you feel like taking a flyer and risking U$25 on a month's subscription the button's over there on the right of the page. Remember that if you do and decide it's not for you after a month, the unsubscribe is quick, easy and no quibble. The last thing I'm going to do is trap you into a service that you don't want.

Los Andes Copper and Amerigo Resources make a logical move

Los Andes Copper (LA.v) needed money to continue its exploration.

Amerigo Resources (ARG.to) has money, and it also has a track record of taking minority positions in junior copper miners in the region (check out the large chunk of DNT.to it owns).

But the big link is Dr. Klaus Zeitler, who happens to be the President of LA.v and also the Chairman of the very successful ARG.to.

The sum total of these three fact is the announcement made today by ARG.to and the whole deal makes a lot of sense. ARG.to now owns around 14% of the full dilution in LA.v. As for Klaus Zeitler, have a read of his resumé as posted on the LA.v website; for the record, this is a good example of the kind of background I like to see when I'm looking at a junior:

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Dr. Zeitler received his professional education at Karlsruhe University from 1959 to 1966 and obtained a PHD in economic planning. Dr. Zeitler is a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Prospectors and Developers Association. Dr. Zeitler financed, built and managed base metal and gold mines worldwide (Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Pacific) with a total investment value of $4 billion.

Dr. Zeitler was a managing director of Metallgeschaft AG, a German metals conglomerate and in 1986 founded and was a director and CEO of Metall Mining, later Inmet, a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company with assets of over $1 billion and base metal and gold mines in different parts of the world. After having been a director of Teck and Cominco for many years, Dr. Zeitler joined Teck in 1997 as Senior Vice President and had responsibilities for the exploration and development of mines in Peru, Mexico and the USA. Since his retirement in 2002 from Teck Cominco and in addition to being President and a director of Amerigo, Dr. Zeitler has been actively involved as a director in various junior base and precious metal companies.