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We could continually debate about RM etc but it's all a distraction from what's really gone on and it's the grades have dropped off considerably.
Hi JC,
Yes Rolr was a typo lol. I'm terribly dyslexic and when writing something it looks word perfect (I even re-read several times before posting), then later notice I've proper messed up so many times writing random letters instead of a word lol. My apologies.
In terms of evidence of RM knowing deadlines weren't going to be hit, I don't think its possible to state it as a fact. Actually, I don't think much can ever be stated as a fact with most posts, be they positive or negative. It is though my opinion, which I've formed taking into account certain known events, some previous history and some guess work.
In terms of the presentation, it was all dependent on the finance being sorted, I believe those timelines (roughly) still stand true once finance is sorted too. That was almost 12 months ago, so if finance was close, something else undisclosed must have gone wrong for it not to get over the line surely? Or, it wasn't close and Robbie thus knew the deadlines wouldnt have been hit.
Equally, not doing your accounts is a known cause for suspension. Given how long its taken post suspension to do them, you could make the case if they werent being worked on back in April, RM would have been aware they werent going to meet the accounting deadline and go into suspension, thus again, know he would meet other deadlines.
For me, given he has history of this (2022 they needed funding to hit 24k and we have been told it takes 6 months after money in to do that, yet in the Sept/Oct of that year stated we were still on track to hit 24k by year end in several interviews, even though he must have known we hadnt started expansion thus werent hitting 24k), my outcome is RM, in full knowledge, plays with the truth, which can mislead investors. For me, that history and event timelines speaks for itself as evidence of that, but no one on earth could prove it.
Now, as Ive said many times, you dont need to trust the ceo imo, and I do think if he had been more honest the SP would have been hit even harder, much earlier on, so I get why info is hidden at times.
Of course NDAs etc can come into play, but NDAs cant legally make you break certain laws or rules i.e., hide price sensitive info.
As an individual I totally get Robbies mindsets tbh, but as a CEO it can be more questionable. While Im not overly into trust (as I think CEOs tend to lie all the time from microcaps to megacaps lol) I know its important to many others.
I get some will defend someone no matter what, and some will lambast someone no matter what, but when the cards are on the table, I do find it hard to understand how Robbies false narratives arent apparent to all.
Is he improving? I honestly dont know yet as were still suspended so hard to tell. He was def more open in that last interview, to the point id say first time ive ever felt he was truthful and not just saying what he felt we needed to hear, but getting stuff over the line is needed now.
It's taken so long because RM has been finalising the numbers.
Gold production from the open cast mining is approximately 6,062 grams.
There's been no record published showing for any gold sales for the last 9 months, including in the latest update.
The gold sold in the upcoming financials, is already known.
Sw10000, I share your views except that my investment is a small % (1.7%) of my PFolio. What I find 'astounding' is the amount of effort for a business Cap'd at c £6m to complete a set of Accounts !! They have now added an African chartered accountant, presumably because records aren't complete due to bad systems, and a CEO of the Kili mine, both requiring salaries !! Will there be another "questionable" fund raising, maybe another loan to GCAT by Robbie at stellar interest rates ?!!
I see their RNS says 11,400 tonnes mined at 1.86 g/tonne. Does that mean 11,400 x 1.86 = 21,204 grams of gold resulting because it seems a lot ? Great if it's true and an answer from those who know more about Gold than me would save my time googling it !!
Fingers crossed we have a happy ending , I invested over 2.5 years ago now and been through the ringer with this.
They have had some misfortune but I also believe that Robbie has been less then honest in certain situations, the example being the interview just before suspension when he have a rather over optimistic view of the audit being completed and funding. Being honest and in hindsight I wish I sold out prior to suspension as I could have put my money to better use.
Being candid, if another company turned up where Robbie was the CEO I wouldn't touch it.
I have a lot tied up in GCAT and hoping we get out of suspension pretty soon and start to deliver on the plans and roadmap i.e. funding , expansion, vim rutha and Tanzania .
At the moment these seem further away then ever, I'm hoping the recent RNS was to let us know they are close on the admin stuff and tidying up ready for funding. I'm not expecting any good results due to downtime, what I do want though is results delivered in a timely manner.
Anyway, fingers crossed 24 is the year for GCAT . At the very minimum lets get back on the market so we can all make our decisions.
Let's hope Robbie proves me wrong, I will gladly eat humble pie when / if he delivers on his promises.
For me, RM was definitely overly positive in his interviews.
Overly excited
Overly optimistic.
Did he promise things, no he didn’t, but he definitely gave the impression things were going much better than they turned out.
Could he have known this, no he couldn’t, but in hindsight I’m sure he looks back at his comments on various points and wishes he’d said things differently. Container his enthusiasm and been a bit more realistic.
I believe he’s learnt from these interviews.
He definitely didn’t have a clue about the funding collapsing, no one could’ve foreseen this so out of his hands completely.
But for me, I invested based on my own research initially but the invested more based on his interviews, his passion, excitement, figures he was mentioning and more. I still believe, in time, this will come good and he will deal with things a lot better. More so with a new CEO, a new CFO, new board members from the financiers and especially when funding lands and we have (hopefully) Empress on board as they are hands on and want to help, advise and grow the company, it’s in their best interests too.
I like Robbie, clearly he’s a bloody hard working lad who wants Caracal to succeed, I think he got a bit carried away with some of his comments for sure but his passion and enthusiasm cannot be faulted. He’s put his own personal money in too and we have HNW’s stumping up cash so for me I’m comfortable sitting here with my holding and looking forward to 2024 and beyond.
Tweets showing progress also give us comfort and confidence things are moving and work continues apace.
Caracal, will, eventually, be a good story to look back on in my opinion.
Not pontificating (hopefully) - more reflecting
Thanks Zan
Great logical post as always - good discussion points
I had completely forgotten that the interview was around the time of the suspension. I do remember thinking that the explanations given at the time were plausible but still struggling to remember the Vim comment - which is a pity - it might have sustained me better over recent months!
Not sure whether rolr in your second sentence was it a typo or if it is an acronym I have not encountered?
Can we have evidence of RM setting targets that he knows can't be achieved? - I certainly think that the targets have been overly aspirational in hindsight. Was the presentation (thanks - I was looking in the RNSs initially) untrue at the time? I'm personally not sure we can state that as fact. Overly optimistic - looking back yes
I think you are referencing p23 for the timeline and as you say all the milestones require financing but at the very start of the timeline it is clear that the financing itself is the prerequisite. So given there are no time lines for individual components of the plan but an obvious end date - did Robbie know at the time of writing the presentation that the funding would be so protracted? Dealing with a third party and a large sum involved - how much he is controlling the timeline here or the conditions? We were given hints in tweets about on site consultants so clearly in-depth due diligence which also costs (normally borne by the company - not financier) - I think in hindsight maybe there should have been some more formal RNS statements about progress and conditions but then again, would that have been appropriate during sensitive funding negotiations? Great for us to know - but is that great for the company or even allowed by the financier? Unknown.
In terms of the accounts - this is an interesting one. We know this is a cash strapped company juggling priorities - what is the right thing to do? Announce to the world that it's struggling to afford the required team of accountants months before? They did that and went into suspension with prior notice to the shareholders as we know and therefore the question is moreover in my view is when should that announcement have been made. What we don't know is what else was happening at the time regarding production and cashflow in the background and what the potential impact might have been on the creditors terms - in business confidence in the supply chain is everything and 90 day terms can turn to COD very quickly and can potentially bring a company down. Also what impact on finance discussions?
GCAT is a PLC though and expectations are rightly high for the need for transparency. The question I keep coming back to in my mind is whether we would still have an operating company if all issues were made public all the time and where the line is drawn? Arguments can be made for and against - hindsight is wonderful. The good thing is that the company is still operating.
Not ramping or making excuses here. Pontificating
Zan, it's a big ask to get any CEO to discuss anything they don't want you to know about.
I've no idea about the interview but it would most likely revolved around known questions for good reason.
The bottom line is that after suspension, they'll be looking to raise funds via placement from prospectus, so they certainly wouldn't say anything that would trash the SP (like the true financial muddle).
Secondly,
Shareholders with significant investments (publicly) would rarely say anything negative about the company and would always look to riddicule those that do (in order to stop a snow ball affect of disgruntled shareholders).
Privately, the same shareholders would have many sleepless nights, knowing that they believed in being cunning buying way more than they should have, only to find themselves in a total fix being on the wrong side of the trade.
That's basically what's happened here and it happens a lot with small caps, some win big but they also get wiped out sooner or later.
Hi JC.
The April presentation was a corporate booklet presentation which contained a yellow fancy timelime of expected events between that April and Dec 23. It included first Vim MRE, Tanz MRE, Killi MRE update, upgrade commisioning etc. All of those required the funding to come in.
For me, I feel it is giving to much credit to the rolr to simply brush off as "ceo is a tough job" type of thing.
FCA are useless, always have been, so the chances of being struck off are slim to none as they are opinions, not facts. A timelime, as you say isnt a certainty, just a set if targets, however, RM repeatedly sets targets which at the time of setting them must know he wont hit them.
The TG interview was done with stockbox, 1 day before suspension. At the time you discussed on here. I appreciate time dulls the memory, but overall, Robbie came over well, was very open and his explanations of why things were as they were made sense, but then he dropped"his view" in response to a question about Vim that was very over the top, which is where he goes wrong imo. It was just his dreamy view, but given suspension was 1 day off, Im not sure it was a wise comment.
Accounts wise, again, thats my point. Im not questioning the why, Im questioning the hidding of the fact they werent being done, while outwardly putting out presentations and doing interviews as tough all was well.
Again, I dont think thats a case of "ceo shoes".
To be frank here, using the walk in there shoes or damned if do damned if dont lines lets basically every company leader off everything.
Accountability surely only comes from allowing blame, not covering it up.
The fact is, there will be investors who put in decent money on the back of his untrue presentations and comments and that to me is why you have unhappy investors on here, which, the more you try to find excuses for Robbie for, prob just get wound up more. Thats not me trying to be harsh, but rather, logical.
Its possible to feel he has done a bad job, without wanting the company to do bad. Its also possible to think things will improve while still thinking the ceo played his part in past failures.
I remember a time when it's you was a big RM fan, decent researcher and eventually changed their opinion of the company/CEO
I'm delighted they've filtered me, so I've no need to engage in their BS.
Shame they got under itsyou's skin and then showed everyone their true colours.
This is a win/win situation for me, if the company does well I'll make money and if it doesn't I'll lose money and have a front row seat watching them being taken to the cleaners.
Expecting a decent amount of dilution with the prospectus, if it comes.
LOL Hodgeyd and Folio.
I though I'd won...see VAR !
SHG was my only share holding until recently after going into safe funds after making a killing a few years ago, although I gave a small amount back with a few loses including GCAT. So i'm not in this game anymore and have tried not to post, but it got the better of me on this BB as it was so easy to reply to the rampers.
You guys continue wasting your life monitoring this BB and trying to make your fortune; I have and spending time on here is a waste of the good life!
Signing out :-)
It's a knockout blow from JC .
Remained calm through out , while others raged, now say someone is never posting again .... best news so far today .... thank you itsyou.
Wooohooooooo lol
P.s, not going to ever post again. It's not healthy the time I'm spending here when life is too short. Plus it's spoiling it for everyone else this two way disagreement.
Ciao
Haha sw1000.
Totally valid point!
As we wait I will try and make sure that if posters are posting accounting information that they quote numbers correctly.
Itsyou
Are we in a playground now?
OK - I'll play - you have given the GL - I'm not giving it back.
Let me see if I can help you marshal your own thoughts -given you know a lot and mean a lot...
Try starting with the opening statement:
The interim consolidated financial statement for Caracal Gold PLC as at 21/12/22 included a total liability position of £15.537M.
Now take it from there - expand upon and make your point or points. If you chose to use financial ratios such as Market Capitalisation divided by Total Liabilities perhaps you could give some explanation behind the relevance.
Lol I don't know why you're all squabbling over liabilities, when you only have to look at the retained earnings in the interims, from negative $25m to negative $29m, for the six months period to 31st December.
Consecutive accumulating losses will be here for a while, it's just a question of whether the company can stay afloat.
Does any of this really matter unless GCAT come back on the market .. That's all I care about at the moment, then we all have a choice if we buy / sell or whatever
Oh my god, you're still going on.
They owe £15.5m, FACT!
I take the GL back. Hope you lose the lot!
Itsyou
I replied to your post because you were misquoting the Current Liability number. Simple.
You ask why bother to reply and that the correct figure was £5M short of the (incorrect) number you used. Really?
You then follow up with this statement:
The company has massive liabilities of £15.5m, which is bad in a high interest environment, especially on the interest rate they are being charged...fact
So you have taken an incorrect number and then inferred that the company is paying interest on this amount.
Why did I respond to your factually incorrect post? Because it was factually incorrect and presented a false accounting position for the company for anyone reading this board who didn't understand the true position.
I present facts to you and you ignore them.
I ask simple questions and you refuse to answer them.
You say 'I know a lot and I mean a lot'. Just what does that mean??
To cap it off you now say that you are not invested here. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.
Correction : "as this chat is GOING nowhere."
"Absolutely no one here is trying to deflect from any numbers - I am shouting from the roof tops to look out for this very detail. That is what all the holders here want - to get to the bottom of all the numbers." - then why bother replying to my first post, although the wording I used was ~£5m short of the total I used? But the total figure is correct.
There's no need to discredit me personally when the total number is correct. I know a lot and I mean a lot.
I'm leaving it there, there's clearly a mile between our opinions and I've been is situations a long while ago where I've defended companies when people bring up negatives, to protect my investment, so it's unfair to spoil this BB as this chat is discussion nowhere.
I'm not an investor here; could be one day, but a clearer picture of the financial status of the company is needed.
GL
(cont)
I am sure many will read my post and just see a one sided view - I understand why that might be but my intention was to play devils advocate.
From my experience things are rarely black and white and particularly in business. Financial accounts can tell you so much but for context nothing beats walking a factory floor - looking at the stock room, looking at the machinery, talking to staff, understanding the components of a cashflow forecast - looking at the make of of the creditor and debtor lists, understanding the broader supply and demand issues to get a good feeling for a business. Of course we don't have that luxury as shareholders - we only get to read an RNS and if we are looking we get some colour and explanation from interviews.
In short I try and read between the lines as well as the factual content supplied. I was raised in a family where money came in from a one man business and have pretty good understanding how money is hard earned from the efforts of one person performing all the duties of any business - its hard - very hard.
I'm not putting my rose tinted glasses on when I look at Robbie or the company - I see it for what it is - currently an under capitalised company operating in a very tough market but literally sitting on a gold mine with huge potential. High risk / reward stuff.
I try and take a balanced view and clearly you do as well Zan.
ATB
Hi Zan
Thanks for the post last night.
I did dial in once to a TG interview (not on their group anymore) but I can't recall most of the content now frankly or the context in which any numbers were given. You are right though - that is a big number. I would need to read a transcript if anyone has it to understand how and why this was mentioned to form a personal view. If it was heavily caveated as it seems from your post, it does sound like he was dreaming out loud and hopefully anyone listening would have seen it as such - but this is where communication is such a complex issue and particularly for CEOs where they have to be so careful. It might well fall into the category of things Robbie later regretted saying, even if at the time he was trying to share some personal long term view of potential. As an aside lets hope he was right!!
In terms of the April presentation - I found an RNS quoting Robbie:
The results from the first 30 days of mining and processing ore from the Kilimapesa Hill high-grade zone have gone beyond expectations and the team are continuing to improve in all the areas. The high-grade zone now supports the current production levels for 13 months, plant availability is back on track and improving after the installation of standby power and recoveries are expected to improve with the delivery and commissioning of the new crusher and additional CIL tank capacity.
Is this what you are referencing? I am not sure that they needed the finance deal to meet those output forecasts as they were concentrating on the HGZ - could be wrong?
If so if that was the situation at that time I am not sure I can see an issue with that. Have I missed something?
To your point about transparency I think it would very much be dependent on whether he was making false forward looking statements or not. I doubt he would have fallen into such a trap as if that was proven the FCA would probably remove his ability to be a director. From my business experience, forecasts are just that - forecasts - so many investors will beat companies up because a forecast was not met, without understanding the reasons why. Mining is a good example of an industry where there can be lots of unforeseen eventualities and in the case of Caracal with so little working capital behind them, its almost a case of be damned if you do and damned if you don't provide a forecast - with old plant being worked hard and potential long lead in times for replacement or repair, it must be an incredibly difficult thing to forecast with total confidence. Probably the best guesstimate at the time frankly.
In terms of the accounts - yes obviously a biggie and with serious consequences. I think before passing judgement we would need to sit in the CEO' shoes and understand the cashflow juggling act - do you throw cash at an accounting function or production - annoy shareholders in the short term (suspension) or have quick and uptodate numbers on the closing statement? (cont)