Todd Corporation Saves Canadian Mine Plans
The company behind a proposed tungsten and molybdenum mine in New Brunswick, Canada, which was running so low on cash six months ago it was borrowing money at credit card interest rates, is suddenly looking alive again, thanks mostly to a bailout from the billion-dollar Todd family business in New Zealand.
The Todd Corporation, a 130-year-old company based in Wellington, has emerged as the chief backer of Northcliff Resources Ltd and the beleaguered Sisson Brook mine it has been attempting to create.
Paul Renken, an analyst with VSA Capital in London who used to follow Northcliff, says the company is fortunate the Todd Corporation came along.
“It was sustaining capital when they needed it,” Renken said.
“[Todd’s] activity to date is that they are a long-term shareholder. They haven’t been ones to move in and out of a particular position, or to take a hostile position in a firm with the intent of breaking it up,” he said.
The Todd Corporation traces its roots back to the 1880s and a wool business run by patriarch Charles Todd.
Todd Minerals Ltd already owns part of a tungsten mine in the United Kingdom and earlier this year created a sensation in western Australia by proposing to build a $5-billion iron ore mine near Pilbara.
So far, Todd Minerals has invested $24.6 million in the Sisson project, including the purchase of 48.5 million shares in Northcliff to help relieve the company’s chronic money problems. Todd is now Northcliff’s largest shareholder.
Original article by Robert Jones, CBC News, February 27, 2017.
