[miningmx.com] – THARISA Minerals is the latest company to roll off the conveyor belt of the Pouroulis family, led by patriarch, Loucas Pouroulis.
A Cypriot by birth, Pouroulis came to South Africa after having been trained in metallurgy at the University of Athens. Mining was in his blood: his father was a copper miner in Cyrpus; the Pouroulis family lived near one of the mine’s slag dumps.
There is now, however, a third generation of Pouroulis’s plying their trade in the sector. Loucas’s eldest son, Adonis, is the chairman of the UK-listed Petra Diamonds whilst his brother, Phoevos, heads Tharisa, which is platinum/chrome miner. In truth, the Pouroulis family has an abiding obsession with mining platinum.
Loucas Pouroulis’ first encounter with platinum – Lefkochrysos – was unkindly referred to as Lefko-“crisis’ following a decline in the platinum price around 1987 which left the elder Pouroulis’ plans in tatters. He went on to run Consolidated Modderfontein, a gold mine, before exorcising the ghost of Lekkochrysos after founding the breathtakingly successful, Eland Platinum.
Lefkochrysos may have been a victim of a surprise weakness in the platinum price, but Eland reversed all that when, in 2007, it was sold to Xstrata for $1bn. It netted Pouroulis a fortune – partly as it was sold at the top of the platinum market – and allowed him the space and time to set about listing other platinum companies like some people collect vintage cars.
Pouroulis listed Keaton Energy, a coal play operating in the thermal coal fields of Mpumalanga, and played with other platinum and gold ventures as far afield as the Congo. He considered, for instance, the listing of Kameni, a company with platinum prospects on the Eastern Bushveld before eventually plumping for Tharisa.
Phoevos says the company, which plans to raise R1bn on listing, has targeted average steady state production of 144,000 ounces a year of platinum group metals, and 1,85 million tonnes a year of chrome concentrate in its 2016 financial year.
About 60% of revenue is chrome, which is controversially exported to China; controversial, because the local ferrochrome industry has complained that providing the Chinese with chrome ore is making the South Africa industry less competitive.
The mine was “operationally cash flow positive” and was operating at about 87% of full capacity, Pouroulis said.
Part of the strategy is to growth through “… value accretive acquisition, development and operation of large-scale and low cost projects that are in or close to production,” according to a company statement.
Phoevos Pouroulis told Miningmx: “We see Tharisa as a platform for future growth. We would look at opportunities mainly in open pit mining’. PGMs, chrome and steel feed minerals are being sought.
Tharisa’s debut wasn’t the banner event the family would have hoped for. The shares at the time of writing at R25/share were well off the R38/share listing price. Having had to list now, however, in order to honour promises to preference share holders, the company knows it will need to deliver on production promises and box cleverly on capital management in order to win a following.
