It's a family affair for British gold mining magnate Hambro

LONDON: Peter Hambro, chairman of gold miner Petropavlovsk Plc, said even his 94-year-old mother keeps a close watch on the company's stock price, which has tripled in 2009.

"She checks on the share price three times a day and calls me if the price is aberrational," said Hambro after taking her latest phone call in his office in London's Belgravia district, which has views over the gardens of Buckingham Palace. "It's a family business."

Bolstered by record gold prices, Petropavlovsk is on the cusp of joining the FTSE 100 index of UK companies 15 years after Hambro helped found the miner. The 64-year-old former bullion dealer and member of the Hambro trading and banking dynasty has used his name and connections to woo investors to his pioneering bets on developing mines in Russia.

"The other side of my family, being famous, rich and glamorous bankers, were non-executive chairmen and directors of many listed companies," Hambro said, opening up a book containing his family tree. "Being executive chairman and 6 percent shareholder of one you have helped to found is a bit different."

Petropavlovsk was known as Peter Hambro Mining Plc until September, when it was rechristened to reflect the Russian name for Peter and his business partner Pavel Maslovskiy. The Hambro name helped reassure initial nervous investors, Maslovskiy said.

"Everybody finds it very difficult to operate in Russia," said Mark Bristow, chief executive officer of Randgold Resources Ltd, a Jersey, Channel Islands-based company that's the sole gold-only miner in the FTSE 100.

"Hambro was one of the early pioneers in there, and has made it work."

Petropavlovsk slipped 41 pence, or 3.3 percent, to 1,205 pence in London, valuing the company at 2.2 billion pounds ($3.6 billion).

Hambro was educated at Eton College, whose former students include 18 British prime ministers, Princes William and Harry and author George Orwell, according to Eton's website. He started work as an accountant in 1964, spent a year at Hambros Bank, which was then still controlled by his family, and later traded bullion at Marc Rich Group and Mocatta & Goldsmid Ltd.

"What originally worked well for him was being very posh and very rich," said Jonathan Guy, an analyst at Investec Securities in London who recommends investors buy Petropavlovsk stock.

Hambro met Maslovskiy, 52, a former professor at the Moscow Aircraft Technology Institute, when the Russian visited London in 1994 looking for investors.

Maslovskiy had a license for a gold deposit about 30 miles from the Chinese border. Hambro agreed to invest $5 million over lunch, Maslovskiy said

The company sold 1.8 million pounds of shares in an initial public offering in 2002 on London's Alternative Investment Market.

Hambro holds 6 percent of Petropavlovsk worth about 132 million pounds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Maslovskiy is the biggest investor with 10.5 percent.

"Peter has such a trait in his character as healthy adventurism," Maslovskiy said.

"He's ready to risk and accept the unexpected conditions that may arise in an unfamiliar country."

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 12/14/2009 page11)