Edmonds scores a £15m success with White Nile

FORMER England cricketer Phil Edmonds extended his winning opening innings at White Nile to £15m as share punting at levels not seen since the Knutsford drama at the end of the 1990s sent the Aim newcomer soaring another 30% on its second day of trading.

Edmonds and his partner Andrew Groves now own shares worth more than £50m in a string of interrelated African ventures ranging from copper mining in Mozambique to hunting for gold in the Congo. Shares in White Nile, a shell company looking for oil in Sudan, were placed at 10p, closed at 75p last night and put on 22½p to 97½p today, valuing the company at almost £150m.

Edmonds and Groves have 9% each of White Nile and a further 1% each through their holdings in Central African Mining & Exploration Company, which has emerged as a 9% shareholder.

The shares' performance has recalled the bizarre weeks in 1999 when shell company Knutsford came to be valued at as much as £700m without a single asset other than its high-profile board of Tory MP Archie Norman, retailer Julian Richer, and property players Nigel Wray and Nick Leslau.

Edmonds said he and Groves are hoping to take advantage of peace in the Sudan after decades of civil war.

'On 9 January there was a signing of a peace accord which hopefully will lead to tremendous development in the south,' Edmonds said.