http://www.perthtyres.com.au/news/2000/12/5/gutnick-quits-tanami-as-homestake-buys-in/

Gutnick Quits Tanami As Homestake Buys In

The Age

Tuesday December 5, 2000

BARRY FitzGERALD

Joseph Gutnick has just greatly reduced his chances of finding much more in the way of gold beneath the sands of Australia's outback.

That's because he has just stepped aside from the Perth-based junior explorer Tanami Gold (ASX code: TAM), the rightly proud owner of a large slab of the country's hottest gold-exploration ground in the Tanami-Arunta province.

The province straddles the Northern Territory and Western Australian borders and is already home to about 10 million ounces of gold, most of it in the hands of Normandy and AngloGold, with the latter yet to tell us all just how big its Coyote discovery really is.

Gutnick is no longer a player in all that. He has stepped aside as Tanami's chairman and will be selling out the position of his Gutnick Resources NL on the share register to let Homestake of the US, one of the real big boys of the gold game, to get on board.

Whether or not Gutnick's departure from the scene reflects the funding pressures being felt across his stable of listed companies is beside the point. Tanami, for one, was gracious enough to thank him for his funding support last year when no one else would put up their hands.

The real point of interest is not Gutnick but the fact that Homestake wanted in and on generous terms. In doing so, it has joined some other heavyweights searching Tanami's ground position for the next big one. They include South Africa's Gold Fields Ltd in the Solitaire joint venture in the NT and Normandy NFM in the Lake Mackay joint venture, also in the NT.

Homestake's deal is more of a strategic alliance. It involves Homestake pumping $1.5 million into Tanami through a share placement (10.275 million shares at 14.6 cents each), giving it 7.5 per cent of the company. The funds will be used to complete the previously announced deal for Tanami to acquire the regional joint-venture interests of Glengarry Resources NL, including the Larrangani gold resource (186,000 ounces) on the WA side of the border.

Tanami and Homestake are to then create three joint ventures covering the Larrangani region (but not the gold resource), the so-called ``other WA tenements" and NT tenements. Homestake can earn up to 25 per cent in all three by spending $3 million within three years. Alternatively, it could earn 51 per cent in selected joint-venture ground by spending the same amount.

It is not the biggest exploration budget around but, with Homestake on board, it can be accelerated if early results excite. The entry of Homestake also means that, for a company of its size, Tanami has done an amazing job in securing and holding on to its big Tanami-Arunta ground position, let alone getting the big boys to come in and do some serious rock kicking.