Antares Acquires Private Placement of Vaaldiam's Shares.

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 21, 1998--Antares (TSE-ANZ) wishes to announce that it has acquired a private placement of 416,667 Units of Vaaldiam Resources Ltd. (ASE-VRL) at $0.36 per Unit or $150,000 in total, each Unit consisting of one common share and a whole warrant to purchase additional common shares of Vaaldiam at a price of $0.46 per share for a two year period.

In addition, Antares has agreed to invest a further $850,000 in convertible debentures of Vaaldiam on or before December 31, 1998 subject to certain conditions.

As part of this private placement, Antares and Vaaldiam agreed to negotiate, on a best efforts basis, a business combination of the two companies on or before March 31, 1999. Should this business combination not be completed, Antares can convert the $850,000 debentures, into an up to 50% participating share of Vaaldiam's then interest in the Vetpan property or into Vaaldiam shares at $0.36 per share, within one year from the date of issue of the debentures.

As a result of the acquisition of the 416,667 Units of Vaaldiam, Antares now holds, on a diluted basis upon giving effect to the exercise of all of the warrants forming part of the Units, 17.9% of the issued and outstanding common shares of Vaaldiam. Antares has acquired the Units for investment purposes and, other than its proposed acquisition of the aforementioned convertible debentures of Vaaldiam and the negotiations regarding a business combination, Antares does not presently have any future intention to increase its beneficial ownership of Vaaldiam, but may do so depending on market conditions.

Vaaldiam will utilize the proceeds from the aforementioned investments to complete its acquisition of a 50% interest in the Vetpan alluvial diamond property in the Ventersdorp district approximately 120 kilometres west of Johannesburg, South Africa. The 50% interest will be acquired by expending $1,000,000 on the property, primarily to extract a 50,000 tonne bulk sample of gravels to determine the recoverable diamond content therein.

According to a report prepared for Vaaldiam by Dr. T.R. Marshall of Explorations Unlimited of Homestead, South Africa dated April, 1998, a mini bulk-sample of 6,000 tonnes completed in 1994 is reported to have recovered 99.71 carats (or 1.66 carats per 100 tonnes) which were sold at an average value of U.S.$493 per carat, thus confirming the potential of the gravels on this property to be mined economically. These diamonds averaged a reported 1.5 carats per stone. Recent exploration has indicated a gravel resource in excess of 14 million tonnes on this property.

No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Antares Mining and Exploration Corporation

20 Adelaide Street East, Suite 901

Toronto, Ontario M5C 2T6