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Int. Consolidated Minerals (ICMI:AIM) 295p

The company is putting itself up for sale in the hope that its poly-metallic Pachapaqui project in Peru will attract interest from majors operating in the same region. An auction with a $550 million starting price should attract such bidders as Glencore, Xstrata (XTA), Milpo and several of the Chinese mining houses buying South America assets. ICMI believes it is worth $850 million, three times its market cap. It has rebuilt a mill and should re-start production in March prior to developing a larger capacity plant. Chief executive Greg Smith is confident that mineralisation trends from the Antamina mine, majority owned by Xstrata and BHP Billiton (BLT), could extend into ICMI’s licence area. Smith also claims Brazilian group Votorantim, which owns 24.9% of Milpo, wants ICMI property.