INTERVIEW
Summer 2016 / Issue 50
Interview With Chris James, CEO of Lynx Resources Ltd, Which
Acquired the SASA Mine in Makedonska Kamenica in November 2015
New Owners of SASA Mine
Pleased to Join Macedonian
Business Community
ACM: Lynx Resources was
established by its shareholders
Fusion Capital AG and Orion
Mine Finance Group to acquire
the SASA mine. What led to this
decision?
James: Both Fusion Capital
and Orion Mine Finance are strong
believers in the fundamentals for
zinc and lead, and the quality of
the SASA mine – which is one of
the most competitive lead/zinc/
silver mines globally, with a track
record of stable production (around
30,000 tons of lead, 22,000 tons of
zinc and 400,000 ounces of silver
in concentrates each year), and a
long resource life of approximately
20 years. We conducted extensive due diligence on the operation
before establishing Lynx Resources
to acquire the mine, culminating in
one of the largest private acquisitions in Macedonia, and in the zinc/
lead industry recently.
20 AMCHAM MAGAZINE
Our company, Fusion Capital, is
a management team focused on
the acquisition and management of
mining operations, and my partners
and I are now the full time management team and co-owners of Lynx
Resources. Our largest investor
is Orion Mine Finance, one of the
world’s leading mining-focused
investment businesses, headquartered in the United States, with
approximately $1.8 billion under
management.
We actually named our new
company after the Balkan Lynx, an
endangered animal in the region
and one of the national symbols
of Macedonia as depicted on the
5 Denar coin, to underscore our
Chris James
respect for the region and its natural heritage.
ACM: SASA mine has a long
mining history. How useful is the
existing infrastructure? What
improvements are planned/
needed?
James: The previous owners
invested in new plant and equipment when they acquired the
assets out of bankruptcy in 2005,
and ramped up the mine to its production levels of today (approximately 770,000 tons per annum
of ore). Our ongoing investments