DRDGold says gold, copper targets are often in risky areas

DRDGOLD CEO Niël Pretorius said the company is looking for new acquisitions including assets in regions that may be considered risky.“We are specifically looking at gold and copper,” Pretorius told Business Times. “We are comfortable with a little bit of geopolitical risk because typically that is where the big assets are,” he added.He was commenting after DRDGOLD’s interim results ended December on February 18 in which the company rewarded shareholders with a 30 South African cents per share interim payout by virtue of a 26% increase in its average received gold price. The higher gold price resulted in a 65% increase in the bottom line.“If you look at some of the top performing companies over the last few decades … you look at a company like Randgold, the initial assets they had they were in good jurisdictions locally; none of them were in Australia, America, Canada and so forth,” said Pretorius of potential targets DRDGOLD may consider.“They built really good assets in countries that many other investors consider too high-risk. It is understanding that and positioning yourself to manage that risk and build an outstanding portfolio,” he said.Pretorius said DRDGOLD was comfortable doing business in South Africa. “We think it is a good jurisdiction; we talk ourselves down a lot. Maybe from time to time in terms of political governance we see things that are not where they should be, but the fact is that we are a constitutional democracy and we have a strong judiciary,” he told Business Times.“We have good infrastructure and good people. There is not a better on-surface ore body than the one we have managed to secure and that we intend to process over the next two decades,” he said.The post DRDGold says gold, copper targets are often in risky areas appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com