Growth Compagny Investor
Robert Tyerman
Australian oilman Ivan Burgess is busily lining up investors to back a standard listing on the London Stock Exchange for Anglian Resources, a private company he heads with its eyes fixed primarily on oil and gas projects in Morocco.
Burgess, former head of onetime AIM counter Black Rock Oil & Gas, has recruited as technical adviser a past colleague, geologist Dr John Scott, to use his experience in the Middle East and North Africa to identify and analyse a series of Moroccan prospects.
With backing already pledged from Down Under, it is understood that Burgess and his team are looking for and close to securing an initial £750,000 to £1 million to accompany the float. He and fellow Anglian director Michael Padley, an erstwhile stockbroker now engaged in financial public relations, regard Morocco as the big prize but are seeking more immediate cash flow from projects elsewhere.
Burgess, who floated Norwest Energy on the Australian Stock Exchange before moving to the UK, became head of Black Rock in 2004 and revamped the company, steering it into three Colombian oil fields and a stake in the North Sea Monterey gas field. The shares underperformed and he left in 2006.
With oil still firmly above $100 a barrel and Middle East tensions likely to keep it there, Morocco, a kingdom showing relative stability, could prove worth exploiting more vigorously than hitherto. If Burgess pulls it off, Anglian’s float should be well received.
