Global bargains provide Lac’s best opportunity `in 40 years’

Formed recently to pursue joint venture and acquisition opportunities worldwide, LAC Minerals’ (TSE) business development group is now “very, very active”, president Peter Allen said at the company’s recent annual meeting.

Allen said the global recession has given LAC a chance to pick up quality assets at reasonable prices. “We are now entering a period of our greatest opportunity in about 40 years,” he told shareholders.

The initiative is truly global. “Just about anywhere there’s a good project, we’ll be sniffing around,” Neil Westoll, vice-president of business development, told The Northern Miner. He said LAC’s first priority is to find “quality” projects. The risks associated with operating these projects in developing countries will be of secondary consideration.

Just a few months old, the business development group is currently a one-man show that relies on the expertise of LAC’s operations, finance and legal departments for advice. But Westoll says he will be hiring at least two full-time assistants to handle a growing pile of property submissions. “In my first three or four months, I was deluged with what’s out there.” In order for LAC to consider a joint venture, syndication or outright acquisition, a project must be in the advanced feasibility or production stage and capable of generating a healthy profit margin, Westoll said. The gold producer is not limiting itself to precious metal projects, but will look at base metal opportunities as well.

During the meeting, shareholders voted in favor of changing the company’s name to Lac Minerals. (The company is currently incorporated as LAC Minerals). The lower-case version has been introduced to reflect LAC’s original name, Little Long Lac Mines, said senior vice-president Gordon Maw. “It is not related to any downsizing of the company,” president Peter Allen added reassuringly.