Harp Sangha DLKM Interview - January 11An interview with an old supporter of Douglas Lake - Andrew Racz - from jan 11 this year. Didn't read it, just passing it on for FYI. It has a weird beginning, like something is missing. Bacon
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HS: I agree.
AR: Friedland goes to road shows every day.
HS: I'm not saying not to go to them.
AR: You have now the chance to build up a very big company. You have the best people around you now. You never had this. Dundee, Byron, these guys are not bad people.
HS: Fantastic people.
AR: This is not a bad company. Now, can I do a colorful interview? Harp. I know you for four years, and I know you have been working very hard to have a gold exploration company in Africa. In a few sentences, what have you done in the last four years, and what have you achieved?
HS: The true significant thing is the acquisition of the [Macouvia] alluvial property that was acquired in 2008. Within twelve months, that property was paid for, $1,080,000. There's another $2.5 million spent on exploration, and a 43101 technical report. That was fairly significant, and that property now has been joint ventured out to a couple of other parties. They will be in charge of developing that property. We'll keep a carried interest, and all dollars that will be required to put that property into production will be the responsibility of the joint venture partners. The second major acquisition, which has really been very positive for the shares, as you've seen, and it's created a lot of enthusiasm of various parties wanting to get involved with the company, is the acquisition of VIPP Properties which right adjacent to the Canaco ground. That's been very significant for us. Canaco has a billion-dollar market cap. We've got $160-170 million market cap, and we're chasing them fairly quickly.
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Canaco Douglas Lake
Shares outstanding 165M 234M
Price $5.30 73¢
Market cap $875M $175M
In the past year, the Douglas Lake Minerals (OTC BB: DLKM) team has made a strategic decision to focus exclusively on its two highly prospective gold properties - the recently purchased Handeni Gold Project and the Mkuvia Alluvial Gold Project. The 800 square kilometer Handeni property will be explored under the guidance of Dr. Reyno Scheepers and is located directly adjacent to Canaco Resources' highly prospective Handeni Gold Project (TSX.V CAN). The 380 square kilometer Mkuvia property is being developed by a joint venture company run by Douglas Lake Minerals' partner.
Corporate Ethics
Douglas Lake is committed to operating under strict legal and ethical standards of all jurisdictions it works within, as well as improving working conditions and remuneration for its Tanzanian geologists and laborers.
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AR: What is your relationship with Canaco?
HS: Currently no working relationship, but we are on friendly terms with one another. Both companies' managements have worked in Tanzania for a number of years, and I think it's in both companies' best interests to continue to work together.
AR: Canaco today has a market cap of $1 billion. Can you briefly, if at all, compare the two companies?
HS: You have six months a year ahead of us. They started drilling in October, 2009, hit some spectacular drill intersections, and they continue to do so. But where they're drilling, the property is divided up between the two companies. They've got the western side of the boundary and we've got the eastern side. It runs contiguously through our property.
AR: So in other words, there is a physical piece in Tanzania where you are partners.
HS: Absolutely. Where we're not formal partners, but it's no different than two houses and there's a fence separating them. If the house on one side is worth a million dollars, there's no reason why the other one on the other side shouldn't be worth a million if it's in the same neighborhood, the same county, same city.
AR: So in a physical sense, you started later, but you are going to drill next to Canaco.
HS: Absolutely.
AR: And of course, Canaco has already shown very big results, so there's no reason why you should be a total failure.
HS: That's exactly what we're hoping for. The boundary is an imaginary boundary. For some reason, some of it was made by mother nature. A simple question for any layman to ask is does the deposit end at the border?
AR: Is there a possibility that there could be some commonality in stock interest, in ownership between you and Canaco?
HS: We certainly have those discussions and will continue to have them. We're meeting with the Canaco management middle of next week, and we'll see whether there's some possibilities.
AR: Your territory, the latest acquisition with Mr. Mergi, is much bigger than the territory that Canaco has.
HS: Absolutely. They've got 200 square kilometers, we've got 800. There's five parallel shear zones that cut across these properties, and we've got the majority of them.
AR: Today is January 5, 2011. First of all, how much money do you have in the company?
HS: We've got a little under half a million.
AR: The ownership of your company -- who are your major stockholders?
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Top 10 Other Holders of DLKM
Name Shares Estimated Value of Shares
Mangi (Reginald) 133.33M 42.67M
Sangha (Harpreet Singh) 6.87M 2.20M
Lin (Yanmol) 5M 880,000,000
Rugumyamheto (Joseph) 1M 170,000,000
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HS: I'd say a little over 50 percent of the shares are held by Tanzanians and the majority of them are held by Douglas Lake's current chairman, Reginald Mengi.
AR: Is there any advantage to the famous Mr. Mengi owning a big number of shares? Or is it less for you to carry the company?
HS: No. Mr. Mengi is very active in the management of it. It was his vision that really drove this thing, him acquiring these lands.
AR: So in other words, Mengi may help you in the next two or three years to acquire more territories, partners and joint ventures, etc.
HS: Without a doubt.
AR: How old is he, if I may ask?
HS: He's in his mid-sixties. Very useful, very young. You'd never know that he's that old. He could pass for somebody ten or fifteen years younger.
AR: In other words, he is very ambitious for the company.
HS: Yes. And because he's been an ambitious man and educated, he's done quite well for himself in the various mish-mash of businesses. Media, soft drinks, bottled water, print media.
AR: I know Africa little bit. I know that somebody who's successful is very successful. You can be in movies, in beverages, mining. It's more than in Europe. What is that you would like to happen in the next six or eight weeks with Douglas Lake?
HS: The two keys things is we would like to be able to announce some sort of sponsorship deal with an investment bank, acting on our behalf with our advisors, and possibly a Canadian listing. Thirdly, a financing.
AR: How much money would you like to pick up now?
HS: The ideal number at this point is a minimum of $10 million.
AR: What would you do with $20 million?
HS: Obviously, more is better. It would just accelerate the process of making a discovery. Instead of being on one target, we potentially could be on two, three or four separate targets.
AR: The price of gold is going up, and Africa is a continent where now there is one discovery after another, not only in gold but in other metals and agriculture.
Let's face it, the world neglected Africa. It was 1961, so fifty years ago when Macmillian made his famous speech, "The winds of change are blowing through Africa." Then nothing happened for a long time, but at least the concept was established and now people discover whether it's Chinese or Indian, or some Canadians or Hungarians like Mr. Monk, that Africa has tremendous resources.
In September, 1961, I interviewed President Moire Thsambe in Elisabethville, the Belgian Congo. He talked about commodities. He favored Union Minière. He waited 50 years. Tremendous waste.
HS: Tremendous is an understatement.
AR: It means the following. Let me go through these steps now. You are now in Vancouver. People accepted that Douglas Lake is a serious contender. The stock doubled in a short period of time. Many investment firms are talking about it. So let's say that you pick up $15 million on this occasion and get one or two investment bankers, and you carry out the program that you have in mind now. But the world could also see that this company is in Tanzania, which is a relatively large in size, has 45 million people, gets a lot of money from the West, is developing fast, is respected. The potentials which have been touched... Who's in Tanzania? Barrick, your friend Canaco, you, and the big African company of Ashanti Gold.
HS: Anglo Gold Ashanti.
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Tanzania -- History
The United Republic of Tanzania was formed in 1964 following the merger of two sovereign states of Tanzania mainland then Tanganyika and the Zanzibar constituting of the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Tanganyika was colonized by the Germans at the end of the 19th century. After German defeat in the First World War, the League of Nations designated Tanganyika a British Mandate until December 1961 when the country achieved full independence. Zanzibar achieved independence in 1963. Following a popular revolution which took place in January 1964, Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania.
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Mining
Tanzania has abundant mineral resources. The country's mining industry is driven by gold mining. Since the mid 1990?s, Tanzania has been the major focus of Africa's gold exploration and development attracting some of the largest mining companies in the World. Major gold mining companies operating in the country include Barick of Canada, Anglo Gold Ashanti of South Africa and Resolute. Gold output in Tanzania increased from 5 tonnes in 1997 to 50 tonnes in 2007 earning the country third position in Africa after South Africa and Ghana. Tanzania has also substantial reserves of other minerals including nickel, iron ore, copper, uranium, coal, diamond and a wide variety of gemstones such as ruby and sapphire, emerald, alexandrite, green garnet and Tanzanite, which is only found and mined in Tanzania.
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AR: Ashanti. These four companies probably touched ten percent of the potential.
HS: That's probably right.
AR: So the big ingredient here is how fast you can get money, how fast you can develop what you have, and how fast you can acquire additional territories, and Mr. Mengi will be influential. You can run very fast, much faster than people imagine. The real Tanzanian possibilities are not in the price of your stock. That's what I'm saying.
HS: I appreciate that point. The potential is probably the biggest I've seen anywhere.
AR: Is it a possibility that any of the major international gold companies will go and try to buy 20% or 50% of your company?
HS: I think we'd encourage any of them to take a look at us. We'd welcome investment from one of the international major gold miners.
AR: Do you have an opinion on the price of gold?
HS: I certainly do, and my opinion is just based on simple supply and demand. There's a burgeoning middle class all around the world, and I think the demand for gold from that class of people will certainly help to create a higher gold price.
AR: If the price of gold passes $1,600, what would happen to Douglas Lake? What could happen?
HS: It's just a matter of size of resource we can find. We're kind of putting the cart before the horse again. Finding of resources is the difficult part. A metric of what Douglas Lake would be worth based on the gold price is difficult to answer until we determine ultimately...the gold in the ground vis-a-vis the gold price will determine what the company should be worth.
AR: If I make a remark which certainly nobody else makes, which is that Tanzania is more or less an unknown country, but it's not a bad country. I have not a prediction but maybe a wish. You and Canaco were totally two unknown companies when I met you four years ago. You went out into the wilderness, found gold, formed companies, employed a few people who worked together with the better social ruler in Tanzania, and the price of gold, of course, has gone up fourfold. And Africa has been discovered as a place to do business. So if the two companies somehow had some cross-ownership of stock and developed a business continually, in five years there could be a joint market cap of let's say almost $5 billion. Then a new international gold mining complex would come around, and to some extent this has not been achieved in Africa since Anglo-American, Harry Oppenheimer and his father Fred Oppenheimer. But history will always give an opportunity to people who have vision and determination.