Resources muse: grant that they all might be Antares Minerals (TSX: V.ANM, Stock Forum).
When we visited the copper company’s Haquira project in Peru with CEO John Black and co-founder Paul Zweng, I knew we were onto something vast.
The stock back in late March 2010 was potato-crop-cheap. One of the world’s craftiest asset managers, Farallon Capital of San Francisco, was (and is) a big investor. So was the IFC arm of the World Bank. Xstrata’s Las Bambas copper monstrosity was right next door.
Most importantly, Haquira’s camp kitchen, clinic and gardens were perfectly kept. The 
Peruvian villagers in this windswept minerals oasis, some five hours’ rough ride from the city of Cuzco, were fully at peace with Haquira’s ambitions. “Who would not want these mining jobs in such a mining-friendly country?” Mr. Black said at the time. Please see our original coverage.
When we flew over Ferrobamba (Las Bambas – in photo below) after a two-day site tour of almost 5,000-meter-high Haquira this past spring, even Black and his team, including geologist Kevin Heather (in photo here), gasped at the scale of Xstrata’s project. These Antares guys (and a few gals) had been living not 10 kilometers from Las Bambas for several years.
Here is what we wrote back then: Antares, which got its start from an Internet stock shell called Planet Ventures about six years ago, just might demonstrate a fresh and potent price level for copper purchases, one that sits in a four-cent to six-cent in-situ range. The plush premium for Antares might occur within 12 months’ time, largely because of the size and grades of its Haquira holding and its 10-kilometer distance from the massive Xstrata (OTO: XSRAF, Stock Forum) Ferrobamba copper project.
We profiled Haquira several times in our password-protected Ticker Trax™. Haquira holds more than 13 billion pounds of contained copper. Yet on a planet voracious for copper, Antares Canada-traded shares were selling for just two pennies or so for each pound of the metal … at the time of our visit. (We even hit the point home again in further coverage;please see via Stockhouse and Ticker Trax.)
Long story short:FirstQuantum Minerals (TSX: T.FM, Stock Forum) is buying Antares for $460 million Canadian. Antares shares, $2 back in April, just passed the $7 mark. We learned that two weeks ago.
There appears to be further upside within the deal structure. That’s because Antares shareholders, in addition to First Quantum shares and cash, get a stake in Antares’ half-ownership of the Rio Grande project in Argentina.
“John Black certainly did the day-to-day heavy lifting,” said Dr. Zweng, a doctorate geologist, interim CEO of a Colombia-Panama copper and gold prospector and an active Honolulu asset manager (hedge fund Resource Venture Partners). 
“PMA (Pachamama Resources) continues to go up on the ANM-FM news,” says Dr. Zweng, who owns a large stake in Antares as a co-founder. “What's the value of a share of the spinco (Rio Grande spinoff stake)? Well, Pachamama (PMA) owns half of Rio Grande and spinco owns half of Rio Grande. So the market cap of PMA is a good guide as to the value of the spinco.”
Like we said, we wish they all could be Antares Minerals. Are there other cheap copper prospects out there? Of course. As copper ballasts well above $3 a pound, the projects with proper managers, solid investor support and real minerals in the ground (of politically calm nations, provinces and states) will benefit.
Dr. Zweng, by the way, still asks me why I never purchased a share of Antares. I have no good answer. But I know our subscribers, both Ticker Trax and Stockhouse, did purchase shares on the promise of Haquira. In the copper hopper.
What’s next? In the commodities sphere, I think stainless steel additive molybdenum will follow copper’s remarkable price ascent. Oh resource muse, let it be so.
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THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom was founding editor of MarketWatch, CBS MarketWatch and FT MarketWatch. He was the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report. Thom has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.
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