Ivanhoe Sets Bidding In Motion For Africa Projects  

This cat will go up in mining history as a high-stakes, 21st century daredevil.  

Those who work with him or for him or even at him mostly agree.  Especially after today.

Ivanhoe Capital's Robert M. Friedland will always sit at the table willing to accept a card that says "Danger: Extreme Country Risk." In exchange, as I have seen with my own eyes, he demands the card that says, "Riches untouched metals grades." Mongolia, Alaska (USA) , Labrador (Canada), Republic of South Africa, DRC Congo.

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Robert Friedland In Hong Kong

Copper, gold, zinc, platinum, rhodium. Sticky-wick Colombia, too, most recently.

"Once he acknowledged we had a real chance of discovering a Tier One copper porphyry, Robert was on board in a meaningful way," Mario Stifano, Toronto CEO of Cordoba Minerals, says. Cordoba's San Matias Project is using one of Robert Friedland's mining technologies, HPX's Typhoon, to detect high-grade copper swaths in Colombia's Mid-Cauca gold and copper belt.  

In exchange, Mr. Friedland of Singapore and his HPX technology unit stand to gain as much as two-thirds ownership of Cordoba's project.   

South Africa -- Ivanhoe Mines Properties

Mr. Friedland and his Ivanhoe Mines CEO, Lars-Eric Johansson, are making financial headlines again. On Monday they said their South Africa and DRC Congo project developer is the object of outsiders' interest and is hiring bankers to sort it all out. Whether they choose RBC or GMP, or ABC and DEF, I know that Mr. Friedland already has a bidding-battle strategy in place.  

Here is something you won't read in the Ivanhoe Mines filing or press release today, or the news articles from Johannesburg and London. Mr. Friedland will never, ever let the platinum-rhodium-gold project on RSA's northernBushveld Complex partner its way out of his sight.  

He once said, when I was with him on site in the early 2000s as he negotiated with native leaders from Limpopo Province, "This might be early days for this, but I'm already into this for 10 years." Make that approximately 23 years now since he and his geologists identified the thick and high-grade sheets of mineralized ore aside the town of Mokopane. 

TCR Will Be At Brien Lundin's New Orleans Dig In October  

I'm only in Ivanhoe since 2003, when I first bought a couple bundles of privately held African Minerals. I've been buying shares of the now public IVN (Canada ticker) ever since, and so have some of my far wealthier advisers and mentors.

Ivanhoe Mines is now our second largest securities holding in fortress Tiburon, California. I cannot recall ever selling a share of it. More nostalgia: MarketWatch.com

I can go on here for our TCR Network, but not just now. Ivanhoe's shares are rising 15% to 17% Monday as Robert Friedland and Lars-Eric Johansson place arrows, markets and platinum paint on their bidding-war maps of the Flatreef/Platreef in South Africa, and Kamoa/K a lula and former King Leopold Mine's Kipushi -- both in DRC Congo. The market shift to Ivanhoe Monday damaged shares of neighboring Platinum Group Metals,which also is developing a mine at the Bushveld Complex of South Africa.

Entities hailing from China, Japan, along with official offices of Republic of South Africa and DRC Congo, are financial and social partners of the three Ivanhoe Mines exploration ventures.  

I've been to all the projects a few times. If I had to venture an opinion, I'd say, as I have been, that Ivanhoe Mines will become two securities and maybe three. I boosted our IVN/IVPAF holdings late last week after scanning the fresh geology and grades of the company's Kamoa copper property and Kalula sections. Fortunate.

I believe  the board of directors of now $1.3 billion USD Ivanhoe will find ways to boost the wealth of their shareholders, with Robert Friedland leading them in personal ownership. 

This transactional time around, I think longstanding shareholders with large, institutional-scale stakes will not be forced to pare their ownership because of bean-counters' conservative fiduciary concerns about portfolio weight. 

Actionable: Wesdome Gold Mines continues its share run higher, past $300 million USD market worthMonday. WDO (Canada ticker) appears to have a high-grade gold tiger by the tail beneath existing mining structures near Val d'Or, Quebec. ... Our own Val d'Or stake claimer, Golden Valley Mines, is on a tear to fresh market highs -- it owns a stake in more than a dozen Canada prospectors, including high-flying Sirios Resources. ... Just heard from the CEO of tiny FIJI copper-zinc project developer Thunderstruck Resources. Official Fijian banking regulators give the OK to Thunderstruck's exploration efforts on the main island. CEOBryce Bradley of Canada says she is meeting Tuesday morning (right now) with mining regulators. Many of ourTCR Network, including me, own shares of AWE (Canada ticker) -- a candidate for a leap ahead this week in market worth. Brien Lundin of that New Orleans Investment Conference Monday said he is now chairman of the socially minded mining prospector. I am an active buyer of AWE shares at the current 10 cents CAD, or will be this week. Another Fiji explorer, Lion One Metals, owns a market worth that is about 20 times Thunderstruck's size. ... I will be getting up to Whitehorse in Yukon land to see Janet Lee Sheriff's and Bill Sheriff's projects for Predator Gold -- as soon as next week. More to come.
  

-- Thom Calandra

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