Pan African Resources PLC (PAR) acquired an exclusive, non-refundable option to purchase Phoenix Platinum Mining (Pty) Ltd from South African-based mining group Metorex Ltd, reported the investor site Proactiveinvestors. 

PAR paid US$1 million for the option, which enables it to conduct a four months due diligence on the existing technical information. The option is payable immediately and can be exercised at any stage within the next four months. The cost of the option, if exercised, will be deducted from any agreed purchase price.

Pan African Resources is a gold exploration and production company with interests in South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana and the Central African Republic.

I’m a happy chappy. I just discovered a wine I drank on Xmas Eve in Cape Town (and thought at the time was the best wine I’ve ever had) has been voted (by a 28-head jury of some distinction) as the third most successful wine in Germany in 2008. [Read on]

For the first time (as far as I can gather) Matthew Jukes, prize-winning UK wine writer and buyer, has now also compiled a “Best of” wine list for South African wine. He posted his Top 50 South African wines 2009 list on his website yesterday. [Read on]

Germany is adamant that it wants DVB-H mobile television and has started looking around for investors again. The big question is: Would Naspers and the other Mobile 3.0 consortium members take another bite at the apple, if the “Rahmensbedingungen” (rules of the game) were more favorable and pre-defined?

[Read on]

The creme de la creme: Rudolf Gouws.

Here is a voice worth listening to when it comes to budgetary and macro-economic assessments for South Africa. I especially liked the bit about “decoupling is a myth” and “the market shouldn’t expect things to pick up too quickly”.

He would have been an excellent replacement for Trevor (when Trevor joins his wife at Absa later this year).

Note: That was just a joke…I don’t want to start a new rumour now.

For most media companies the global economic environment remains unfriendly, if not scary. But for Naspers, the international media group with South African roots, the sun broke through in the past week.

[Read on]

This article from the Russian news service RIA Novosti just for the record (it first appeared in July 2008). Mail.ru is a Russian internet company. I republished without changing anything (in case some sentences don’t make sense!):

Mail.ru shareholders have not abandoned plans to offer their company’s stock on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), CEO Dmitry Grishin told Kommersant on Tuesday. 

“We have decided to postpone the IPO for a year. The reason is simple: all shareholders who wanted to sell their stakes have done so, and it makes no sense to step up the process.” 

Mail.ru has never in the past confirmed its listing plans officially. A source close to the company said Port.ru Inc. will carry out the IPO. It owns netBridge Ltd., a 100% owner of Mail.ru. 

Grishin said that in July the list of Mail.ru beneficiaries was overhauled, but now can be considered fixed until the public offering. 

A source close to the company said Tiger Global Management, an American investment foundation, last week sold 14.55% of its 27.95% stake in Mail.ru to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), managed by Yury Milner, a former director of Concern Neftyanoi, and Grigory Finger, executive director of NCH Advisers. The source said Tiger had initiated Mail.ru’s IPO in 2008 to take profit. 

Currently, he said, 50.55% of Mail.ru is controlled by DST, 13.4% by Tiger, and 32.6% by the South African media company Naspers Ltd., with the rest belonging to minority shareholders, including Dmitry Grishin. 

Sources in some investment banks, including Deutsche Bank and Renaissance Capital, say the list of DST owners is now also changed and includes businessman Alisher Usmanov. The Mail.ru top manager said Usmanov has obtained 30% in DST. 

As the Mail.ru IPO was scheduled for the third quarter of 2008, no new share issue was planned. Citibank, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse wanted to underwrite it.

“Mail.ru finally chose Goldman Sachs,” said an official of one of these banks. 

Goldman Sachs yesterday declined to comment. 

“As far as we know, the owners of the Internet resource planned to sell between 25% and 40% in the company, i.e. not only Tiger wanted to take profit. But the situation on the financial markets would not have allowed them to secure adequate capital. There was even a strong urge to cancel the IPO,” said Ivan Shuvalov, a senior Alfa Bank analyst. 

Under the current setup, he believes, Mail.ru can look to a capitalization of $1.5 billion at the most, while shareholders want $2 billion. 

PS. Let’s hope someone asks Mail.ru soon what has happened to their listing plans.

The International Herald Tribune published a report on Africa’s and South Africa’s broadband infrastructure, saying the price of broadband to households may drop to a fifth of its current level in the next two to three years. Also look at this contribution.