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Astron - zircon

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Last week Kerr-McGee decided to spin off their TiO2 business and the article below has Astron raising substantial amounts of cash with a London listing. These are strong endorsements for the present state of the mineral sands industry. It should help us get deals in place. Australian zirconium group heads for City By Edward Simpkins (Filed: 13/03/2005) One of the world's largest producers of zirconium, a rare metal whose uses range from paints, ceramics and deodorants to nuclear power stations and the Space Shuttle, is preparing to float in London with an expected market value of around £100m. The company, Astron, controls around 18 per cent of the world market for the metal and is the largest supplier to China, the fastest growing market for zirconium materials and chemicals. Astron is already listed on the Australian stock exchange. It is looking to take advantage of the strong demand for natural resources stocks when it comes to Aim in May by raising around £20m of new money. The company's profits are growing sharply. It made A$12.9m (£5.3m) in the six months to December, compared with A$15.1m for the whole of the previous year. Analysts expect profits for the whole 12 months to be around twice as high as for 2003/4. The company is planning to use around half the funds raised to expand a test mine in the Gambia in west Africa. The other half of the money will be used for a strategic push into titanium pigment, a mineral often found with zirconium. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/03/13/cnastron13.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2005/03/13/ixcity.html