The latest chapter in a fascinating tale of industry diversification emerged today with the announcement by Senetek Plc of a rather unusual acquisition.
California-based Senetek is best known as a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of technologies connected with the science of healthy aging.
It started to look for new opportunities a couple of years ago when its skin care business was underperforming and a report from its financial advisors said that it would require investments far in excess of existing company resources to generate meaningful revenue.
The board was advised to divest the skin care business, and to develop a new business strategy to bring revenue, profits and a positive opportunity for company shareholders.
So what did they do? They changed the composition of the board, bringing in some mining expertise, and went out and bought a gold mine—Relief Canyon—out of the bankruptcy of Firstgold.
Today’s announcement confirms the closure of the acquisition of two further mines, the Gray Eagle Mine in California, and the Iron Creek Property in Idaho, from Iron Eagle Acquisitions, Inc, a Nevada corporation.
The Gray Eagle Copper Mine, a past producer of significant amounts of both copper and gold, consists of approximately 344 acres of patented mining claims in Siskiyou County, the northernmost county of the State of California. Newmont Mining operated an underground mine there in the 1940s, but the mine was closed after the Second World War.
It was mined again in the 1980s by Noranda Mining, which leased the property from new owners Siskon, producing approximately 180,000 ounces of gold.
The Iron Creek copper-cobalt property in Idaho consists of seven patented mining claims of approximately 140 acres in Lemhi County, about 26 miles southwest of the town of Salmon. Past work by previous operators has identified several mineralized zones of copper and cobalt, and numerous other exploration targets on the property that have not as yet been evaluated.
"We believe that these two properties represent a transformational event for Senetek in our transition from a biopharmaceutical company to a mining company," said Howard Crosby, President of Senetek.
"Taken in combination with our plan to restart the Relief Canyon Gold Mine early next year, these two very advanced stage copper projects provide a tremendous upside potential for our shareholders, built on the foundation of tens of millions of dollars of previous exploration and development spending by major mining companies. As a result of this past work and production history, we will be developing these assets upon a tremendous base of solid historical data."
