11th Aug 2014 11:18
LONDON (Alliance News) - Newly-listed building materials company Fox Marble Holdings PLC is looking to embark on its Chinese joint venture by the end of the year, the company?s Chief Executive told Alliance News.
The AIM-listed company, which extracts marble in Kosovo, said it will use some of the funds from its GBP4.8 million share placing last month to wrap up the deal as it attempts to get a foothold in the Far East market. The company said it will market, sell and distribute its stone in mainland China.
?[The joint venture partner] has four physical points of presence on mainland China through which they sell 90,000 tonnes of marble a year. That is more than we intend to produce in a year so we fancy our chances and they are very keen on illyric white [marble],? Chris Gilbert said.
China remains the largest buyer of block marble in the world by a considerable margin, and securing entry to this important market is considered a key strategic aim.
Gilbert said Fox Marble, which has yet to report revenue since being established in 2011, has also made significant operational progress in 2014. The company listed on AIM in 2012.
Earlier this year, the company moved to acquire a third white sivec marble deposit. To finance the deal the company proposed a share placing of new shares at 18 pence per share to raise GBP4.8 million.
Fox Marble believes the new site is the best sivec deposit in the area and the company will use a large proportion of the GBP4.8 million raised to fund the deal as well as its new quarry in Malesheva, Kosovo home to illyric white marble, which is popular in the US and the Far East.
?This [deal] is hugely accretive to the value of the company in terms of what we can extract over the next five to ten years,? Gilbert said. ?If you look at our joint venture quarry, our surveyor has found that there are 69,000 cubic metres of extractable marble which is about 200,000 tonnes. If you value sivec at EUR500 per tonne, which is a very conservative figure considering it can go for as much as EUR3,000, on that basis our share across two new concessions is EUR120 million.?
Fox Marble shares were quoted down 1.3% at 16.53 pence Monday.
By Anthony Tshibangu; [email protected]; @AnthonyAllNews
Copyright 2014 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
Focus Xplore