Namco sinks into watery grave

Out of working capital and with no hope its subsidiaries will resume operations, marine diamond miner Namibian Minerals is heading into permanent dry dock as liquidators sell off the company’s assets.

In a prepared statement, Namco (as the company is known) said there was little prospect any of the proceeds would make their way to shareholders.

De Beers has surfaced as the main bidder on the assets. Chief among these are the Namco Mark II mining tool and plant, and equipment aboard the MV Ya Toivo vessel, including the seabed crawler Nam 2.

Meanwhile, LL Mining is in talks to acquire the company’s Namibian diamond concessions, the NamSSol seabed crawler, equipment aboard the MV Kovambo, equipment aboard the MV Zacharias, and the MV Namibian Gem airlift vessel.

The ongoing liquidation process is out of the hands of Namco’s board of directors, all of whom plan to resign.

Namco’s troubles began in early 2001 when a mining face collapsed on the NamSSol crawler, cutting off the company’s main source of income. The crawler was eventually hauled to surface and repaired, but not before the company was forced to place key South African and Namibian subsidiaries into provisional liquidation to ward off creditors. Namco was unable to secure further funding from bankers and lenders to keep it afloat.

Ironically, the liquidation follows record production of 117,050 carats in the third quarter of 2002, when Namco had both the NamSSol and the Nam2 in operation. The company made a small quarterly profit of US$96,000 (or nil per share) on revenue of US$15.2 million, which was still an improvement over the year-earlier loss of US$940,000 (1 per share) on US$4 million.

For the first nine months of 2002, Namco lost US$32.8 million (33 per share), compared with a loss of US$26 million (35 per share) in the corresponding period of 2001. Revenue between the two periods nearly tripled to US$27.2 million from US$10.2 million.