Gulf wants balance of Asamera (May 25, 1992)

After a relatively short time as a public company, Asamera Minerals (TSE) is returning to the private realm.

Asamera Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulf Canada Resources, recently announced it will pay $1.40 per share for all the shares it does not already own. Asamera Inc. currently owns 91.74% of the 25.132 million outstanding shares of Asamera Minerals.

Over the past few years the company has been put up for sale by the parent a number of times, and although there were a number of interested groups, a sale was never completed.

Asamera was originally listed in July, 1987, through a 2.5-million unit offering which netted $17.4 million for the company.

Although the shares did manage to hit a high of $8.88 following the initial issue, they slipped into a lengthy decline thereafter, bottoming recently at the 65 cents level prior to the bid.

Asamera’s assets include a 51% interest in the profitable Cannon underground gold and silver mine near Wenatchee, Wash.

Remaining proven and probable reserves attributable to Asamera at the mine at the end of 1991, totalled 1.5 million tons grading 0.26 oz. gold and 0.53 oz. silver per ton.

Asamera also holds a 75% option on the promising Maliadine River property near Rankin Inlet in the Northwest Territories. Comaplex Resources International (TSE) owns the remaining 25% interest in the property. Drilling last year on the Discovery zone returned gold values averaging 0.35 oz. gold over widths of up to 42 ft., a strike length of 575 ft. and a depth of about 1,000 ft. Further drilling is planned to test the downdip extension of the zone.

In addition, Rio Algom (TSE) is earning a 60% interest in a separate block of ground about 15 miles to the west of the Discovery zone. Rio can earn the interest from Asamera and Comaplex by spending a total of $5 million of which $500,000 is planned for this summer.

For the year ended Dec. 31, 1991, Asamera reported a loss of $1.2 million or about 5 cents a share, although cash flow excluding exploration expenses totalled $7.9 million or about 31 cents per share.

Working capital at year end totalled US$5.2 million while long-term debt amounted to about US$8.2 million.