Jordan Company, the majority shareholder of Hong Kong listing candidate and coal-mining machinery maker International Mining Machinery Holdings, said yesterday that it wanted to make more acquisitions in the coal-mining sector. 'We are looking at a dozen candidates,' said Thomas Quinn, chairman of IMM and managing principal of the US-based private equity fund, which has about US$6 billion in assets under management. 'We are very bullish on the coal-mining sector and we intend to make further acquisitions through IMM.' He declined to give details. Heilongjiang-based IMM, which has already attracted the Government of Singapore Investment Corp, as an investor, is selling 520 million shares and the offer price range is set between HK$4.88 and HK$6.38. The listing is planned for February 10. The business took off in 2006 when IMM first bought two state-owned manufacturers of roadheaders and shearers. Apart from buying other companies from the coal mining sector, IMM hopes to use the net proceeds of its HK$3.32 billion listing to construct and fit out more of its core products, including roadheaders, which crush the ground, and shearers, which remove the coal from rock faces. Some of the net proceeds will go to a new plant to make armoured-face conveyors (AFCs), the third product in addition to its two core products, after an acquisition in 2008 of Huainan Longwall Coal Mining Machinery for HK$58.4 million. The new production facility is in Huainan city in Anhui province and production is expected to begin in June this year. Roadheader sales contributed 44.7 per cent of total revenue at the end of 2008, with shearers contributing 27.2 per cent and AFCs 11 per cent. A large increase in machinery output is planned over the next two years. Another company from the coal mining sector, Canadian-listed coal producer SouthGobi Energy Resources, which lists today, traded yesterday in the grey market at HK$122.50 per share, 2.81 per cent lower than its offer price of HK$126.04, according to broker Philip Securities. SouthGobi, which is also listed on the Toronto stock exchange's Venture Exchange, is controlled by Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines. It has been producing coal since late 2008 at its flagship Ovoot Tolgoi mine, located 40 kilometres from the China-Mongolia border. According to its draft prospectus, the company produced 1.1 million tonnes of coal from the Ovoot Tolgoi mine up to September last year. It estimated production would reach eight million tonnes a year from 2012. According to a pre-listing research by Sun Hung Kai Financial, SouthGobi is priced at 21 times its forecast earnings this year, higher than the sector average of 14 times. The securities firm said that SouthGobi had huge potential but its short track record and the fact that its liabilities exceeded its assets could pose risks. Share sale International Mining Machinery Holdings aims to list next month It plans to retool and boost output of core products by using net proceeds from the listing of, in HK$: $3.3b