VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 21, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Westhaven Ventures Inc. was featured in a recent article on Financial Post. Here is the article:
If results are your yardstick to measure reputation, look no further than the storied life of pioneering prospector D. Grenville Thomas who helms the Vancouver-based Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX-V: WHN ) an exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of prospective resource properties.
Gren, as the 73-year-old rugby-loving Welshman from Swansea is known, began his career as a 16-year-old coal miner in his native Wales before moving to Canada in 1964.
Best known for the discovery of diamond deposits that have been developed into the world-class Diavik mine in the Northwest Territories, Thomas began his Canadian career with Falconbridge, taking posts in the Sudbury nickel camp of Ontario, and at the Giant gold mine in Yellowknife.
He then moved on to open Highwood Resources to explore in the North, which led to the discovery of the Thor Lake rare metals deposit.
In 1980, he formed his flagship junior company, Aber Resources, which subsequently discovered the Sunrise Lake massive sulphide deposits and in 1991 staked a large group of claims in the Lac de Gras region based on reports of a diamond discovery.
With the help of his daughter Eira, a geologist, Thomas attracted global mining giant Rio Tinto as a joint venture partner. By 1995, four economic diamond deposits had been discovered and with the support of Rio Tinto. Aber's Diavik discoveries today have been developed into one of the world's richest diamond mines.
Thomas's discoveries in advancing Canada's diamond industry have won him many honours, including the PDAC's Prospector of the Year Award for 1999. In January of 2009, Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.
"Gren left the 'Old World' as a young mining engineer to become a pioneering prospector and company-builder in the New World, where he made a series of important mineral discoveries and contributed to the advancement of Canada's fledgling diamond industry," a spokesman for the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame said.
Not one to rest on his laurels, Thomas continues to be active in Canadian exploration through Westhaven Ventures Inc. which has attracted a wealth of experience in the sourcing, exploration, development and financing of world-class resource assets.
Among them is Vic Tanaka who has over 45 years experience as a geologist and exploration manager with junior and senior companies. Tanaka has participated in several mineral discoveries across Canada's North, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.
Westhaven also boasts Ed Balon, another 40 year plus exploration veteran with multiple discoveries, as a technical advisor. Balon is credited with developing the hypothesis that the Spences Bridge gold belt in southern British Columbia, where Westhaven's Shovelnose gold project is located, is highly prospective for epithermal gold and silver.
Others on the board include Shaun Pollard, a founding partner at Meridian Capital International Ltd, a mining focused advisory firm and Gareth Thomas, who has been involved in the mining industry for over 12 years.
Westhaven is focused on advancing its 18,412 ha Shovelnose property near the southern end of the Spences Bridge Gold Belt, its BEN project located approximately 50 km north of Williams Lake, B.C. consisting mineral claims on 15,322 hectares in the Cariboo Mining District and its Mona project which consists of two continuous mineral claims located east of the Yellowknife Greenstone Belt.
But it's not only what is potentially in the ground that makes Westhaven attractive for investors.
The company has only 23.5 million shares outstanding and Directors & Officers own 58% of those shares.
Salaries paid to Directors and Officers is $100,000 in total per annum.
"Management intends to earn their money as a result of share price appreciation resulting from a discovery, not salary. To say management is aligned with shareholders would be an understatement," said Pollard, Westhaven's Chief Financial Officer.
Analysts touting Westhaven said the people involved in the company, their history of multiple successful explorations, and their overall discovery expertise makes it a sound bet.
"Exploration is as much as an art form as it is a science," said Pollard.
"Experience and demonstrable success matters most when investing in an exploration company because exploration success provides both access to capital and deal flow. It's as much a function of knowing what won't work out as what will."
"By mitigating risk and keeping salaries and costs low, when we do raise money it gets spent on advancing our projects all the while minimizing dilution." added Pollard.
http://business.financialpost.com/2014/05/21/...tures-inc/
Westhaven Ventures Inc. 604-681-5558 www.westhavenventures.com
