BLACKROCK WORLD MINING TRUST plc
All information is at 31 January 2010 and unaudited.
Performance at month end with net income reinvested
One Three One Three Five
Month Months Year Years Years
Net asset value* (undiluted) -7.0% 6.7% 97.2% 22.8% 163.3%
Net asset value* (diluted) -7.0% 6.7% 97.2% 26.0% 165.2%
Share price* -6.9% 6.9% 98.8% 21.7% 151.2%
HSBC Global Mining Index -8.9% 6.4% 77.4% 48.2% 184.3%
Sources: BlackRock, HSBC Global Mining Index, Datastream
* Net asset value and share price performance includes the warrant
reinvestment, assuming the 2004 and 2006 bonus warrant entitlement per share
was sold and the proceeds reinvested on the first day of trading.
At month end
Net asset value Including Income Capital only
Undiluted/Diluted: 615.18p # 610.55p
# Includes net revenue of 4.63p
Share price: 512.00p
Discount to NAV**: 16.1%
Total assets: £1,123.45m
Net yield: 1.07%
Gearing: 3.4%
Ordinary shares in issue: 177,762,242
Ordinary shares held in Treasury: 15,249,600
** Discount to NAV based on capital only.
Sector % Total Country Analysis % Total
Assets Assets
Diversified 46.0 Latin America 26.6
Base Metals 20.7 Global 24.5
Gold 12.6 South Africa 10.6
Platinum 7.7 Other Africa 10.5
Silver and Diamonds 6.1 Australasia 8.5
Industrial Minerals 5.6 Canada 6.0
Other 0.9 USA 3.8
Net current assets 0.4 India 3.7
Indonesia 3.0
Emerging Asia 1.3
Europe 1.1
Net current assets 0.4
----- -----
100.0 100.0
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Ten Largest Equity Investments (in alphabetical order)
Company
BHP Billiton
First Quantum Minerals
Freeport McMoRan
Fresnillo
Glencore Finance (Europe) 5% 31/12/14
Impala Platinum
Minas Buenaventura
Rio Tinto
Teck Resources
Vale
Commenting on the markets, Evy Hambro, representing the Investment Manager
noted:
Performance
January started in a bullish tone with share prices rising on the back of a
strong macro-economic environment. However, towards the end of the month, the
market weakened as investors became more risk averse as uncertainty emerged
over demand from China following the introduction of a tighter monetary policy,
investors worried over the stability of the Greek economy and with the increase
in controls on the banking sector being suggested by President Obama.
Whilst global demand appears to be recovering, news flow, high inventories and
the strengthening of the US dollar are likely to cause volatility across the
sector.
Copper prices touched a 16 month high of US$7,536/tn at the beginning of the
month as the miners at Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, went on
strike fuelling concerns over the short term supply of the base metal. Demand
for the red metal has been strong as China reported record levels of imports in
the second half of 2009 thereby supporting the price.
Within the bulk commodities sub-sector, iron ore and coking coal spot prices
are now significantly above 2009 benchmark prices. Iron ore and coking coal are
the main constituents of steel production and negotiations for the majority of
long term contracts are currently underway. Over January we saw upgrades from a
number of analysts, with Bank of America Merrill Lynch increasing their 2010
iron ore contract settlement up 15% to 50%.
Strong relative performance during the month came from our exposure to the
platinum metals complex, as they performed well as the automotive industry
continued to restock inventories and concerns over supply from South Africa
remained. We also continued to see strong performance from our exposure to
copper companies.
Strategy/Outlook
After the strong recovery in both metal prices and equity valuations in 2009,
it would be easy to conclude that 2010 will be a less exciting year. However,
we would suggest that the lows were more a reaction to the state of the banking
sector rather than a change in the long term drivers of commodities demand. In
fact much of the share price recovery can be ascribed to valuations moving back
to levels that reflect the true cost of replacing assets. In addition, with
commodity prices at higher levels than most management teams expected, cash
generation will be in excess of many companies' requirements. We expect this to
result in further M&A as companies should look to reinvest this into existing
projects rather than build new capacity when demand has not fully recovered.
January has seen a sharp pull back from levels experienced across the base
metals and precious metals markets towards the end of 2009. We believe this
pull back may have created an opportunity as valuations are now looking more
attractive and we would suggest that this provides a possible entry point to
the market. While we believe that short term volatility in the sector is
likely, stock selection and commodity selection will be key in order to take
advantage of opportunities in these markets.
Latest information is available by typing www.blackrock.co.uk/its on the
internet, "BLRKINDEX" on Reuters, "BLRK" on Bloomberg or "8800" on Topic 3 (ICV
terminal).
26 February 2010
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