PanAust Wins Approval for Chinese Investment

SYDNEY, June 30 -- Copper-gold miner PanAust said it had won approval from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board for China's Guangdong Rising Assets Management (GRAM) to take a 19.9 per cent stake in the company.

    PanAust announced late last month that it had entered into a share placement agreement with the state-owned investment group.

    GRAM will make a cornerstone investment of $180 million at 39.5c a share and a top-up investment of $35 million at 28c a share.

    The GRAM investment also required Chinese regulatory approvals and PanAust shareholder approval at the July 8 extraordinary general meeting, PanAust said in a statement.

    Separately, the company announced that normal operations had resumed at its Phu Kham copper-gold operation in Laos after an SAG mill motor failure prompted a shutdown on June 19. Downtime was shorter than expected.

    "A seven-day shutdown for a SAG mill reline was brought forward from July, resulting in only a net four days of unscheduled downtime," PanAust said.

    The next major shutdown for a ball mill reline is planned for January 2010.

    (Source: Dow Jones)