Stock Selling in Liberia

"You know the President does not lie. His word is true. Someone must have faith to believe that when all this is done and the iron is dug out, the iron itself will make money to pay for all these machines. Those people are called a company." Thus, President William V. S. Tubman of Liberia plugged a new stock issue at a meeting in 1958 of the paramount chiefs of the tribes in Liberia, speaking the simple English they could understand. Tubman told them that for $100 (payable in three installments) a Liberian citizen could buy $500 worth of stock in a company planning to mine iron ore along the Mano River, the border between Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Putting up the other $400 was a private U.S. developer, Lansdell K. Christie, 56, who will put a total of nearly $3,000,000 into the new company. Christie, who has made millions from his share of a concession to mine iron in Liberia's Bomi Hills, agreed to lend $1,700,000 interest-free to help Liberians become shareholders in one of their country's richest natural resources. Says Christie: "We can't despoil underdeveloped countries of their wealth. We must allow them to participate. It is unthinkable for a developer to try to hog a project all for himself."

Jungle Trek. One minor government official walked two days and two nights through forests, then rode for a day and a night to file applications to buy the stock. Cocoa and rubber farmers, laborers, houseboys, clerks and merchants lined up by the hundreds to oversubscribe the issue, many signing with crosses and Xs. Last week, with the proceeds from the first major public stock offering in a West African nation, construction was under way on a 55-mile railroad through the cedar and mahogany rain forest to link the Mano River ore hills with Liberia's major port, Monrovia.

The Mano ore deposits (proven resources: 53 million tons with over 55% iron content) will be developed by Christie, a husky onetime Army engineering officer who built bases in Africa during World War II, was the biggest contributor to the Democratic Party in 1956 ($70,564). Christie won his concession in 1946 for his Liberia Mining Co. to dig Bomi Hills ore, then sold the controlling interest to Republic Steel Corp. in 1949.

Contracts in Hand. The new Mano mining concession belongs to the $10 million National Iron Ore Company, Ltd. (1,000,000 shares), owned by the Liberian government (50%), the Liberia Mining Co. (15%) and Liberian Enterprises, Ltd., a holding company (35%). Christie and his associates own 35,000 shares in Liberian Enterprises, Ltd., and have sold the other 22,750 through the public offering to more than 1,600 Liberians. Under the terms, Christie will be repaid the $400 he lent each stockholder from 50% of their dividends.

Christie's schedule calls for the Mano mines to be shipping ore in the spring of 1961, operating at full production of 4,000,000 tons a year within four years. To do this will cost $22 million; but Christie does not expect any trouble raising the rest of the capital.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.