Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN, Stock Forum), a Vancouver-based exploration and development firm operating in Africa and Australia, responded to an inaccurate Reuters piece written on the company's press release dated May 15, 2014 which provided an operational update and released financial results for its Q1 2014.
According to the news release, the Reuters story was quoted as saying that the company had, “said it would not be able to develop two mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo unless it gets more funds by the end of June.”
The company feels that the previous statement misstated and misrepresented what Ivanhoe had actually announced in the new release and what was stated in its Management's Discussion and Analysis.
Ivanhoe wanted to reiterate that it had only said, “the company's main objectives for 2014 remain…the commencement of the underground mine-access decline at the Kamoa Project and the underground drilling program at the Kipushi Project." Ivanhoe further stated that the company would require further funding by the end of June "to meet these objectives.”
Executives at Ivanhoe felt the article's statement implied that the development of Kamoa and Kipushi is an all-at-once or not-at-all proposition when it is generally understood that mine development is completed in financing phases.
Therefore the company, although informing shareholders that each successive development phase would require funding, it expected this progression to continue moving forward and that currently funding is for the present phases of the DRC projects, which include the underground mine-access decline at the Kamoa project and the underground drilling program at the Kipushi project.
The news release went on to note, “The Reuters story also ignored Ivanhoe's statements that it was progressing ongoing discussions and negotiations with potential strategic investors and joint-venture parties, and that it was examining a number of corporate and project-level options, including "a corporate reorganization; project spin-offs (including potentially separating its South African platinum assets and its DRC copper and zinc assets into separately listed public companies); sales or joint ventures; project- or corporate-level debt and/or equity investments (including interim financing); and additional and/or alternative stock-exchange listings for certain of the company's projects."
It then concluded, “Ivanhoe continues to examine these options to help realize the full value of its world-scale mineral projects in Africa.”
Ivanhoe was in the news recently when the company released financial results for Q1 2014 and provided a corporate update yesterday.
Currently there are 576.0m outstanding shares with a market cap of $869.7 million.