Ivernia shareholders have approved the company's decision to take a primary listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Under the scheme, Ivernia will become wholly owned by Ivernia West Inc and Ivernia shareholders will receive one Ivernia West Inc share in lieu of each Ivernia share held.

"We made the decision, with the way the Irish market was going, that we should seek a listing elsewhere, where the market was more understanding of mining and what we were trying to do with Ivernia," Mr David Hough, managing director of Ivernia West, told an extraordinary general meeting yesterday.

"Toronto is a huge exchange with between 17 per cent and 20 per cent of all business in mining or mining related. "We felt in order to grow the company, access further capital and build and develop the whole operation, Toronto was the place to go."

After the meeting, Mr Hough said Ivernia would reach full production at the Lisheen mine in Co Tipperary by the first quarter of next year.

"There is a growing demand for zinc on the world market, with prices increasing," he said.

Last month, Ivernia bought 100 per cent of the Magellan project, a lead-mining operation in Australia. It is paying its partner, Polymetals Australia, eight million Australian dollars (€5 million) for its stake. Mr Hough is bullish about prospects for the operation and for the lead market, where prices have increased from $390 per tonne to $520 per tonne over the past six months.

But he says he does not expect a turnaround from last year's loss of £1 million at the company, especially as Lisheen is still in a start-up phase.

"Until the mine gets to full production, it's then you start to get cost-efficiencies you normally associate with a project like this. But it also depends on zinc prices. If prices were to shoot ahead, we could turn the corner very rapidly," he said.