Gran Colombia Draws Large Amounts of Capital To Gold Market -- Ticker Trax

Almost $300 million: Gran Colombia

Emerging gold producer draws capital to Frontino, Zancudo

TIBURON, CALIFORNIA – A privately-held gold company, Gran Colombia Gold, just raised an astonishing $275 million. Gran Colombia, whose Serafino Iacono I have tracked for many years, says the company hopes to be producing 100,000 ounces of gold or more a year in short order.

Gran Colombia is in the process of going public. Please see details. Mr. Iacono’s company has laid the groundwork to develop the troubled Frontino Mine in Segovia. Gran Colombia also bought the Zancudo property at Titiribi in Antioquia, near Sunward (TSX: V.SWD, Stock Forum)’s Chisperos and not far from Bellhaven (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum)’s La Mina prospect.

Gran Colombia will use a company called Tapestry Resource (TSX: V.TPR.H, Stock Forum) for a three-way blending of parts and a reverse slip into the publicly-traded stock. Post-money valuation is about $330 million Canadian.

For Mr. Iacono, a supporter of popular and outgoing Colombia President Alvaro Uribe, the capital raise amounts to investor applause from overseas in a record-strong amount. GMP Securities in Toronto handled the private placement of 40-cent equity and will perform the “greenshoe” this week.

Mr. Iacono tells me from Cartagena that he and his team see the Frontino Mine, once Colombia’s largest gold producer, as a “monster.” He says he chose the name of the company in homage to his old Gran Colombia, a mid -1990s developer of El Marmato, a gold project in Antioquia and Caldas departments.

Medoro Resources (TSX: V.MRS, Stock Forum) “now has its hands full with Marmato,” he says. Mr. Iacono was a director of Medoro and responsible for bringing disparate representatives to the table to complete a purchase for the tortured yet gold-lush mountainside of EL Marmato.

The Frontino transaction is similar in that it requires an enormous amount of capital – some say more than $200 million. Frontino, like El Marmato, has social challenges with the community of miners, generations of them. Medoro of Toronto hopes to participate in the ownership of Frontino … but the clock is ticking. Please see details.

Mr. Iacono had no comment on whether Medoro might cede the entire Frontino to Gran Colombia, which now has the cash for purchasing the rich yet tattered mesothermal deposits there from government administrators. Mr. Iacono has a track record that includes co-founding and raising money and government support for energy company Pacific Rubiales (TSX: T.PRE, Stock Forum), perhaps one of Colombia greatest corporate success stories of the past 10 years.

For Mr. Iacono, the three-month process of raising the Gran Colombia money was among the most difficult he says he has had to perform as a financier. “It wasn’t easy but I think it says that gold investors still have faith that Colombia is one of the best places for fast growth in legacy gold and copper properties,” he says.

The CEO of Colombia’s Continental Gold (TSX: T.CNL, Stock Forum), Ari Sussman, says executives in Colombia have been tracking Gran Colombia’s efforts. “I am most impressed Fino got the deal done. It’s fantastic for Colombia,” Mr. Sussman says.

Mr. Iacono says his team is largely in place. It includes a president, Maria Consuela Araujo, who was Colombia’s minister of cultural and foreign affairs. Projects on tap include exploration programs at Carla Gran Colombia, Mazamorras (southern part of the country) and Concepción. This last area alone, in Antioquia, holds four mining concessions covering 3,384 hectares.

Xtra-Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum): The Ghana prospector just farmed out two concessions to another company. It also just released a technical report – Canada’s compliant 43-101. The activities are steps in the Ghana prospector’s efforts to get its 33-square-kilometer Kibi Gold Belt project into the next gear. Please see release, which leads to the technical report on the possibilities of the Apapam Concession. The entire report runs 270 pages. It recommends a two-part exploration effort at the project, which I have seen twice now.

NEW ORLEANS: This autumn I will be making two or three appearances outside of prospect tours. One of them is in New Orleans, where I appear each year at Brien Lundin’s New Orleans Investment Conference.

If you’d like to join our Stockhouse and Ticker Trax audience at the late-October show, please register and pay up at this link: REGISTER FOR NEW ORLEANS. You get a discount on the price at that address. And I have something special planned for New Orleans. It’s my favorite investment show.

STUFF: Our Ticker Trax landing page has more stuff, videos included. Please see: https://stockhouse.com/TickerTrax/Default.aspx.

• SHOCK ROCK:Timberline Resources (AMEX: TLR, Stock Forum) and (TSX: V.TBR, Stock Forum) in Montana and Nevada just became part of one of the Russell Microcap indexes. Please see report.
• Companies I hope to peruse for a possible shock-rock portfolio of cheap natural resources include HathorExploration (TSX: V.HAT, Stock Forum) for uranium. We here at home just purchased shares of the Saskatchewan company.
• In Sweden: producer Gold Ore Resources (TSX: T.GOZ, Stock Forum). Gold Ore is about to record its one-millionth ounce of gold production. The mine is called Bjorkdal Gold Mine. I now own a small number of shares – bought Wednesday at 56 cents each Canadian. The company’s latest numbers are out and look promising. Please see Shock Rock article on Stockhouse.

Among our 12 Ticker Trax™ Planetary Prospects, Xtra-Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) of Ghana is giving up little of its 2010 gains ahead of what looks to be a listing on a commodities-comfortable stock exchange. Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum), our prodigal moly prospect, is gaining as executives purchase shares. Please see Thom Calandra article on Stockhouse.

• In West Africa, we are looking at Mike Nikiforuk’s African Gold Group (TSX: V.AGG, Stock Forum), a Ghana and Mali prospector.
• On the uranium front, we are looking at -- or looking at a second time – Wits Gold (TSX: T.WGR, Stock Forum) and (OTO: WIWTY, Stock Forum). Wits Consolidated Gold is the gold and uranium prospector and large land-controller in South Africa’s Witwatersrand Basin. We visited nearly all of the company’s properties in winter 2010.

For more on all of the Planetary Prospects, please visit our Ticker Trax Library.

Ticker Trax™ is in place – and thriving – because its fiscal loyalty is to subscribers who are looking for radically cheap investments. Our service, started in November 2008, researches a select group of Planetary Prospects™ with legitimate shots at rising 1,000 percent or more in the span of two years, maybe less and maybe more.

Planetary Prospects

There are 12 of them. Please visit www.tickertrax.com and search our landing page for details on the start of coverage for individual Planetary Prospects and the entry price. In addition, Xtra-Gold Resources is a preferred client of Stockhouse, distributor and publisher of this Ticker Trax™ report. We here intend to report good and bad on our Planetary Prospects; we are considering eliminating one of the current 12 and replacing it with something more worthy of our research time. For instance, I am not pleased with the lack of traction that Colombian Mines (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) is getting at its Yarumalito gold and copper prospect near Medellin. I have great respect for Presidents Bob and Gloria Carrington of CMJ but now see that they need to ally with a larger entity if they are to manage effectively a vast holding of resources in Colombia.

• Central Fund of Canada (AMEX: CEF, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.CEF.A, Stock Forum) –Gold and silver repository. Its premiums, being a closed-end fund, are rising. Own this one as a money market proxy for real gold and silver – metal that actually might be delivered to investors if ever they want to cash in their paper stakes.
• BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX, Stock Forum) –Influenza and leukemia drugs. Gout, too. Biomedical appears to be back in vogue as an investment. We here at home are holding these shares – 80,000 and counting. There is no risk of a dilutive financing. There is a risk of Type A H1N1 remaining the dominant seasonal flu virus for several years. The company has a new 5.5 percent investor: Joseph L. Harrosh. (Please view: Stockhouse exclusive article.)
• Endeavour Silver (AMEX: EXK, Stock Forum) and (TSX: T.EDR, Stock Forum) –Silver (and gold) in Mexico. I expect Endeavour Silver to purchase a publicly-traded silver (or silver-gold open-pit) company this year. Most metrics, including costs, cash flow (a net profit for the three months vs. a year-ago loss), silver and gold output, are improved markedly. Brad Cooke and his team realize they have to show their audience its exploration activities are vibrant enough to hurtle the small Guanajuato and Durango company above five million ounces of silver equivalent per year. Mr. Cooke and his team say they are doing exploration drilling at the San Juanico property in Parral, Chihuahua, among other points. Please see the list.
• Endeavour Financial (TSX: T.EDV, Stock Forum) – No relation to Endeavour Silver. This is Neil Woodyer’s profitable Canada-traded merchant bank that is making a big bet on West Africa. … in the form of Crew Gold (TSX: T.CRU, Stock Forum)and Etruscan Resources (TSX: T.EET, Stock Forum). The shares, even with a three-month steady climb, trade at a discount to the value of securities owned by Endeavour Financial. The company’s book value is about twice the current share price. It intends to purchase all of Etruscan.
• Xtra-Gold Resources (OTO: XTGR, Stock Forum) –This West Africa gold prospector might follow in the footsteps of successful Keegan Resources (TSX: T.KGN, Stock Forum) … and Perseus Mining (TSX: T.PRU, Stock Forum) … and Red Back Mining (TSX: T.RBI, Stock Forum). Xtra-Gold shares get little attention on the USA over-the-counter bulletin board and deserve a listing on a commodities-comfortable exchange. The 43-101 report is now published. Let’s hope James Longshore and his team, including new geologist-consultant Robert J. Casaceli and new CEO Paul Zyla, keep moving in the right direction. Fresh drilling will start this summer. (Pleasesee the Libraryfor coverage stretching back to autumn 2009.)
• Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GBG, Stock Forum) – This is Ferdi Dippenaar’s South Africa and Nevada miner. Real gold at Burnstone and Hollister mines … and prospecting at Esmeralda in Nevada. Great Basin says it has “excellent operational performance at Hollister in Nevada and improved efficiencies at the Esmeralda Mill facility in Nevada.” Ditto for South Africa’s Burnstone Mine. I have been to all of the company’s working properties. GBG is on track to become the next $1 billion market cap gold company. Current cap is almost $600 million. (Please see our password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
• Candente Copper (TSX: T.DNT, Stock Forum) – Joanne Freeze’s Candente has copper in Peru at Cañariaco. The almost eight-billion-pound copper project is starting to get the attention of manufacturers and bankers. Yet Candente Copper’s shares sell for a value of only a penny a pound for its in-situ copper. Candente Copper, formerly Candente Resource, is among the cheapest propositions (based on ore in the ground) in this list, along with Avanti Mining. (Please see libraryfor coverage.)
• Candente Gold (TSX: T.CDG, Stock Forum) –This separate company’s shares were distributed to predecessor Candente Resource’s shareholders in January 2010. We issued a full report on Candente Gold’s Peru prospects in April. Now, we’ve examined El Oro, an entire district and artisanal mine workings about 200 kilometers from Mexico City. I have seen it. I see the potential of the epithermal gold-silver vein system with some 50 known veins. (Please see password-protected libraryfor coverage of El Oro in Mexico.)
• Great Panther Silver (TSX: T.GPR, Stock Forum) –Silver in Mexico. Robert Archer is the CEO. The Panther just extended one of its veins, called Recompensa, at the Topia property in Durango, Mexico. The company is on the prowl for assets so that it can notch 20 percent yearly gains in output. GPR’s rising silver grades and low stock valuation compared with other Mexico silver producers make the company’s shares look like a bargain. Quarterly performance at the Canadian company produced a net profit. Great Panther’s silver-equivalent output at Guanajuato and in Mexico’s Durango state is benefiting from improved efficiencies and richer gold harvests. The company’s metals’ production includes byproducts and runs about half that of Guanajuato neighbor Endeavour Silver.
• Avanti Mining (TSX: V.AVT, Stock Forum) – Cheap and aspiring molybdenum mine at Kitsault in British Columbia. Avanti just hired Bob Jacko of Thompson Creek Metals to manage project development at the mine. When Avanti’s Craig J. Nelsen and A J Ali see this through, Kitsault will be producing about 25 million pounds of the stainless-steel additive each year – for 15 years. That is 215 million metric tons of ore grading 0.085 percent of moly. That works for a world where steel-based moly demand is expected to expand six percent or so this year and next. I just saw in the latest proxy that Mr. Nelsen, the Avanti CEO living in Colorado, owns more than 10 million shares of the company. Canada’s Bob Cross of B2Gold is an Avanti director and owns more than five million shares. Avanti Mining at a market worth of less than $30 million is the cheapest proposition on this list. Avanti must show it can line up plenty of cash or lending pacts for a project whose total cost probably will run more than $640 million. I have been to Kitsault. Moly is an additive in all types of stainless steel. (Please see the password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
• Colombian Mines Corp. (TSX: V.CMJ, Stock Forum) – CMJ has one of the thickest property books in Colombia for such a tiny company: some 300,000 hectares. Yet one of the thinnest news flows. Bob and Gloria Carrington and Nate Tewalt’s company has reported drill results from its Yarumalito project in Colombia. The numbers were mediocre. CMJ’s Robert Carrington says he and CEO Nate Tewalt of Washington state are considering a joint venture or sale for its Venecia holding in Antioquia. (Please see the password-protected libraryfor coverage.)
• Bellhaven Copper & Gold (TSX: V.BHV, Stock Forum) – Panama and Colombia. We here at home now own 1.4 million shares. Dr. Paul Zweng’s success rate with epithermal gold deposits and with copper prospects such as Peru’s Antares Minerals is among the best I have seen in eight years. Dr. Zweng is interim CEO of Bellhaven. Bellhaven owns La Mina concession in Antioquia, Colombia. (Please see the Libraryfor coverage.) He just appointed a new VP of Exploration for Panama, Tom Drown. Dr. Zweng worked with Mr. Drown in Mongolia.

In Colombia, our speculative target is Antioquia Gold (TSX: V.AGD, Stock Forum). We also own (and have researched and visited since 2008) Medoro Resources (MRS) of Colombia. We hope to participate in the financing of Gran Colombia Resources, which appears at the top of this report.

We here at Ticker Trax™ do not address queries about a company, an investment or a speculative theme that is written as part of Ticker Trax or our Stockhouse reports but is not a Planetary Prospect. We stand firmly behind our Planetary Prospects and back them with our own patient money here at home.

As for reporting on other companies, ideas are there for all to view and consider. Please do not expect Ticker Trax™ to support these subjects with research, on-site visits and so on. Feel free to contact these companies, be they Nevada prospectors, Canada miners or Peru, Colombia and South Africa companies … and so on.

For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles – especially this one: Core Box Revealed. Companies whose site tours I attend for research purposes pay part or all of my airfare and hotel. Stockhouse and I also pay when necessary.

Ticker Trax™

Please visit Stockhouse for a selection of our Ticker Trax research and our password-secure Library for subscribers.

(All photos by Thom Calandra. Thom and his family own shares of each of the 12 Planetary Prospects. Thom’s personal holdings are available for all to see on Stockhouse, the Canada publishing company. Subscribers are informed well in advance of any shift in research regarding Planetary Prospects and any purchase or sales decisions. Subscribers always come first.)

Ticker Trax™Please see tickertrax.com to learn more about this wealth service and its Planetary Prospects. For an index of free Thom Calandra articles, please click here. For an entire explanation of our strategies, research methods and disclosure procedures regarding all aspects of Ticker Trax and our Stockhouse reports, please visit our readily available Stockhouse articles. Please see this one in particular: Core Box Revealed. For the password-protected Ticker Traxlibrary, please see: www.tickertrax.com/Login.aspx.

HOLDINGS: Thom’s holdings are listed for Stockhouse members at www.Stockhouse.com under the “portfolio setting” for user TCALANDRA. It is public and free to view. He and his family own recently minted gold and silver coins and shares of about 30 public and two private companies. As with each of the Planetary Prospects, Thom Calandra owns Colombian Mines, Xtra-Gold Resources, Great Basin Gold, Endeavour Silver, BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Bellhaven Copper & Gold and each of the other Planetary Prospects researched in this and other reports.

THOM CALANDRA of Ticker Trax helps his audience find value in a quagmire of investment choices. Thom co-founded CBS MarketWatch and MarketWatch.com. As the voice of Thom Calandra's StockWatch and The Calandra Report, Thom pegged $300-ounce gold as a long-term hold in 1999 and in 2000. He has been covering life-sciences and natural resources since 1988.

For a Ticker Trax Library starting in November 2008, please see our Stockhouse Password-Secure Archives.

NOTICE: For those who might not be paying Ticker Trax subscribers: Si vous n'êtes pas le destinataire prévu ou un agent responsable de la livraison de ce courriel, tout copie, impression, reproduction ou autre utilisation d'une partie de ce courriel est strictement interdit.(Thom and Stockhouse also produce free reports. Please visit Stockhouse.)

Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockhouse Publishing Ltd. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE. Copyright 2010 all rights reserved.