Vulisango opportunity in Simmers shell ALLAN SECCOMBE | Published: Thurs, 29 Sep 2011 07:18 Wants Simmers to be able to raise capital in a listed entity, wants to keep shareholding as broad as possible to maintain liquidity in the stock VULISANGO Holdings, the privately held empowerment group headed by Valence Watson, has bought Rand Merchant Bank A's holding in JSE-listed cash shell Simmer & Jack and has plans to make it an active company again. Vulisango bought about 142-million shares for 1,75c per share to raise its stake in Simmers to 32,25% from about 22%, Mr Watson said yesterday. The shares traded at 3c yesterday, rising from 2c. There are no immediate plans to buy more shares from any other big shareholders because it would push VulisangoA's stake above 35%, triggering an offer to all shareholders, something Vulisango does not want to do, he said. "Vulisango is not a listed company but Simmers could be something in our *****nal and other shareholdersA' to raise capital in a listed entity and look for opportunities," said Mr Watson, who is Vulisango CEO and a Simmers director. "We have an opportunity as Vulisango Holdings in this listing." The intention was to keep the shareholding as broad as possible to maintain liquidity in the stock, Mr Watson said. His brother Gavin has bought an 11% stake in Simmers, giving the Watson family a large position in the company. Valence Watson owns 27% of Vulisango and black investors own the balance, making it an empowerment company. "Gavin has nothing to do with Vulisango. What he does know is that with Vulisango, with me at the helm and the type of people at Vulisango, when we put our minds to something we do it. I suppose he wants to go along for the ride," Mr Watson said. "We didnA't buy the stake from RMB because we didnA't have anything better to do." After a transaction with Village Main Reef to acquire all its gold mines, Simmers was left with about R20m cash and R25m in an escrow account pending finalisation of the sale of its mothballed gold mines near Pilgrims Rest, Mpumalanga, to Stonewall Mining. Marius Saaiman, the caretaker CEO of Simmers who has joined Village as its chief financial officer once a replacement financial director is found for Simmers, said Simmers had until February to do a deal or delist from the JSE. "We are looking at opportunities but there is nothing specific or concrete that weA've found that I can say the company will look to do," Mr Saaiman said. "We are under some pressure to find an investment to remain listed and we have to finalise our position by end-February." Among the options are another company reversing its assets into Simmers or for Simmers to buy an asset. Mr Saaiman said he was not actively hunting such an opportunity