The market capitalisation of Western Australian listed companies surged 123 per cent, or $93 billion, in calendar 2009, according to the Deloitte WA Index.
The market capitalisation of Western Australian listed companies surged 123 per cent, or $93 billion, in calendar 2009, according to the Deloitte WA Index.
For December, the Deloitte WA Index closed at $167.9b an increase of 9.6 per cent for the month.
"The Deloitte WA Index has increased 123.2% for the year ended 31 December 2009, a powerful bounce back from the turmoil of 2008 and indicative of the overall strength of the Western Australian economy," said Keith Jones, managing partner of Deloitte in WA.
The growth in the value of WA listed companies for December was once again strongly driven by the resources sector, evident by an increase in market capitalisation of $10.5 billion for the month.
During December, movers and shakers within the Deloitte WA Index included Allied Gold, Murchison Metals and Ausdrill, with the market capitalisation of each company increasing by 66.5 per cent, 50.4 per cent and 43.0 per cent, respectively.
In December, Allied Gold announced they had acquired 96.9 per cent of Australian Solomons Gold and were proceeding with a compulsory acquisition, as a result of an off-market takeover bid launched in September.
The market capitalisation of Allied Gold increased further due to the completion of its public offering of 432,840,000 shares which raised $160 million to fund the completion of its Simberi Project oxide expansion, and the redevelopment of the Gold Ridge Project acquired through the acquisition of Australian Solomons Gold.
The market capitalisation of Murchison Metals increased following the December announcement of a significant resource increase in the Jack Hills Project in which it holds a 50 per cent interest through Crosslands Resources.
As a result of the recently completed exploration program, the JORC compliant Mineral Resource at Jack Hills now stands at 3.0 billion tonnes.
Ausdrill obtained approval from the Supreme Court of Western Australia in December, for the scheme of arrangement that will effect its merger with Brandrill. A friendly script merger has been proposed, in which Ausdrill will issue shares to Brandrill shareholders in exchange for shares in Ausdrill.
The major world indices also performed well in December. The Nikkei experienced the most significant increase of 12.8 per cent, followed by the FTSE 100, Australia All Ordinaries and US S&P 500 with increases of 3.8 per cent, 3.5 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.
Commodity movements showed mixed movements in December. The prices of nickel, palladium, tin and zinc increased by 12.96 per cent, 11.50 per cent, 11.10 per cent and 10.32 per cent, respectively, while silver and gold experienced declines of 8.71 per cent and 7.01 per cent respectively.
