George Frangeskides, Exec-Chair at Alba Mineral Resources, discusses grades at the Clogau Gold Mine. Watch the full video here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
It's actually Tharisa. He may not appreciate you calling him Theresa.
Amplats results for last year out today. Headline earnings down 71% YOY. The group cash operating costs in 2023 were R17,859 or about $943/ PGM oz. Have announced possible job cuts to cut the cash operating costs to R 16,500-17,500 or $871 to $923/PGM oz. and all-in sustaining costs to $1050/oz. Production guidance is unchanged at 2.1 to 2.3 million ozs for 2024-2026.
Implats results out around 29th Feb.
I also don't have a problem with Karo. I'm also very happy with the input from Theresa around the times of RNS release. It is very rare to get that, and I very much appreciate it.
Will be looking to top up when funds come in, assuming we haven't climbed up quite a bit. Very undervalued on the assets owned IMO.
GLA
At the moment it's pretty much all about chrome. Production in Q1 was pretty good and price looks stable so I'm not expecting any surprises. Personally I don't have a problem with Karo.
We will see what comes out of the AGM next Wednesday but I believe the Tharisa mine is still performing extremely well, it is just the Karo concerns that is pulling this down. The JSE Tharisa price today is down 10% to ZAR 12.60 which currently converts to 53p.
I sold my shares. Karo is a bad investment that the market never liked from day one. I presume that people are selling out as results are due soon and it will be dire.
Can see it both from the company point of view and the posters point of view -but not good to accuse the company of not being open without understanding all the facts.
On the JLP board there is a certain poster who accuses the company of not being truthful with investors on a daily basis and name calls anyone who is remotely positive on the company’s prospects -yet the company seems never to even challenge him
Given an (ex) shareholder with a fairly high social media following got out & announced it at a similar time it’s very possible their sale + followers doing likewise was responsible for the increase in volume of sales.
Whilst I’m all for IR interacting on public forums to update shareholders, it would be beneficial if this was done in a positive manner with the intent of assuaging Such fears & not in a negative manner that could be construed as an attempt to shut down free debate and allowing complete transparency.
What nonsense - when there are statements on bulletin boards erroneously stating corruption and getting valuations / accounting wrong by multiples of 4/5, I would expect a company to protect its interests and that of its shareholders.
Discussions on the viability of Karo is fair game, with Mike and others posing some key concerns, but not the former issues. It clearly caused many PIs to sell as they attested to themselves on LSE and ADVFN.
IR is key for any company - people constantly and rightly moan about most AIM companies not performing any IR or PR. I personally think it has performed and continues to perform a valuable service in offering clarifications when posters inadvertently or maliciously post incorrect details, or simply respond to clarifications. I for one hope THS/ Ilja continues their ad-hoc posts. I'm sure it did not help that the THS team likely were at Indaba Mining Conference when the whole sorry affair occurred on here.
When aim businesses start to threaten investors on free bulletin boards, it smacks of desperation. Tomorrow I shall be selling my THS shares first thing at a loss. I’m not impressed.
FAO Tharisa.
As a shareholder I'd rather you completely focus your attention on the business and ignore defamatory or other factually incorrect posts on internet forums.
As I'm sure your legal team will agree It is notoriously difficult to claim and be compensated for defamation. Essentially you'll need to prove the posts in question caused the business damage. The bar is very high.
Corrected his calculation and erro but teh damage was done and can be construed as manipulation as the post was put out without checking the fcats, which lead to a massive swing in vol/SP on the day, but he still accuses the Company of corruption (I see this post has been deleted but I have a hard copy of it)
We are not paying another group Company, we are provding equity capital (130m into Karo, in return for new shares in Karo, while the other party has chosen not to provide capital, and they are thus being diluted as clealry stated in our reuslts presentation of 14/12 (Current equity stake increased to 75%, on flow of balance of Tharisa equity commitment will increase to 80% , we have always said we will provide 130m in equity and the rst of the funding Karo is responsble for and ring-fenced, hence ECIC etc
Thanks for replying Ilja/Tharisa.
I think you imply that I missed your point - which is the original poster miscalculated the Karo valuation and so you would like action taken against them. In defence of the poster, I would say that they have later acknowledged and corrected their calcs.
The underlying issue remains however and you have not addressed it. This issue is that Tharisa appear to have used our business’ money to subscribe for new shares in our partially owned subsidiary, Karo, valuing this subsidiary business at double Tharisa’s market cap, at a price which appears to me to be highly unattractive. This has then been relayed to us shareholders in the footnotes without proper comment or rationale leaving a void for us to speculate and fill in the blanks. You appear not to be happy with the ‘filling of the blanks’.
Not sure anyone has mentioned the word corruption specifically. I would point out though that hypothetically should additional Karo shares be overpaid for by Tharisa, then the other Karo owners would therefore benefit disproportionately. And there seems to be overlap with Pouroulis both owning Medway Developments (who have minority interest in Karo) and controlling Tharisa, which you no doubt can see might lead to speculation over conflicted actions.
We’d like management to explain the rationale of the business decision and why the extra subscription is deemed in our business interest. If it has been explained previously please kindly point out where so we can put this matter to bed.
Thanks Mike -very clear that Karo’s viability is totally dependent on the recovery in PGM basket price and that the feasibility calculations used a high PGM basket price compared to historic norms
Moneyman64 I agree that we are now far away from the original justification for Karo based on a PGM basket of $2140/oz and a cash cost of $1096/oz (excluding royalties). The other main assumptions were a base metal basket $15,099/tonne (contributing about 20% of revenue), initial PGM recovery of 78-82% and PGM production of 190,000 oz/year .The base metal basket has also dropped, I calculate about 13%, so that is holding up much better than PGM's.
To reduce that cash cost per PGM/oz, Karo is now looking to produce nearer 200,000+ oz/ year by improving the recovery to nearer 82% (some S African PGM mines are actually at 85% or better) and greater plant optimisation particularly the concentrator with the same 980 people(we know that at Tharisa, the Voyager and Genesis concentrators have been running consistently above nameplate capacity for many years). They could look at re-planning the open pit mine to avoid some of the deeper more expensive ore to reduce costs but this would also reduce the open pit LOM, similarly with the phase 2, underground. Additional PGM/base metal benefication could also help .All of this might reduce the cash costs by say 10% but then we have inflationary delays admittedly offset by some gain from the stronger USD. So overall with these potential savings I still believe the cash cost is around $1050-1100/oz and grows with every year the project is delayed. We know that the capex cost has increased from $391m to nearer $430m so the excluded non-cash costs such as depreciation will be higher and current interest rates are now higher. There are possible savings to be made by giving Karo internal investment (such as cash payments from Tharisa for new shares) and this saves Karo paying around 10% financing/year at current rates (the VFEX bond is costing 9.5% interest/year plus costs) but there is an opportunity cost in this for Tharisa.. So as I have mentioned before, in my opinion the break-even cost is nearer $1700 oz PGM other things being equal.
Anyhow if the project is 100% reliant on ECIC external funding of $160m then we await the decision.
Thanks Mike your posts are very helpful
2fartcatz the Head of investors relations is Ilja Graulich who posts on this chat as Tharisa. He has not answered anyone's questions or concerns but instead threatened us all with legal action for asking questions. I really don't think emailing him is going to result in a better response than what we have received on here, perhaps you should go first.
Freedom4Uall,probably better if I do not comment on the bulk of your last post but regarding verifying the 2023 $65m cash subscription by Tharisa in new KMH shares, I confirm this has gone into the net assets of KMH. At the end of Sept 2022 KMH had net assets of $4.898m increasing to $83.427m at the end of Sept 2023, an increase of $78.529m which is probably the $65m cash subscription plus a net profit of $13.528m (not quite sure where this has come from unless it is net gain in non-current assets/currency adjustments during the year less some operating costs such as labour?).
See note 16 on page 62 of the Sept 2023 Accounts.
I would suggest that anyone that has concerns regarding Karo or any other Tharisa business do so by sending an email to investor relations. I gather that there is anAGM shortly, where no doubt the management would be happy to answer any shareholder questions and concerns.
Thunderbuddy, you missing the point, developing a project and debtaing this is one thing , calling people corrupt in a public forum and getting numbers wrong and posting those, possibly causing market reaction, is a different matter
Are Tharisa threatening their shareholders with legal action? Seems like it!
Very disappointed with Ilja’s response, have been waiting for what he had to say.
The discussions on this board are valid regarding how our funds are spent. It has been pointed out as the disclosures are in the footnotes without explanation as to how the board have valued Karo Holdings. Ultimately, with the latest subscription, valuing Karo at 4x asset value - at a time when the PGM basket has collapsed (which the board have noted hence delay in construction).
It is also fair to point out that Medway Developments are the ultimate beneficiary of any overvaluation of the Karo business.
I remain a (large) shareholder as I believe Tharisa is vastly undervalued and that PGMs will turn up. I also supported the Karo investment and stick by that. I have been impressed with the Pouroulis family and their running of the business to date, however this is highly concerning and I demand that the Karo valuation be explained!
My main concern is the profitability calculations for Karo were done on the basis of a PGM bubble price of $2160 for Karo -historically very high-now virtually halved and the cash Pgm price of production at Karo exceeds $1000 per PGM ounce which seems very high.
What can be done to reduce this cost by a significant amount per PGM ounce to make Karo viable if there is no material recovery in the PGM basket price
Tharisa instead of all the legal jargon you could of just answered investors concerns.
After looking close here is what i conclude to be going on, Pouroulis /Medway run Thar, also own 40% of Thar shares as of FY22 (now 44%). Pouroulis had a separate project/ idea (Karo holdings) of which Pouroulis/ Medway owned 100%, the project required funds to materialise for example 400m, Option 1 Pouroulis pays entire 400m from own pocket keeping 100%. Option 2 use Pouroulis controlled Tharisa pocket to pay 400m cost to Poroulis 40% of 400m. In addition to this dynamic Pouroulis/ Medway "sells" majority stake of it's idea (Karo) to its 40% self (Thar), 66.3% of Karo for 4.5m and 13.7m Thar shares, those 13.7 m shares increased Medway/Pouroulis stake in Thar by 10%, 13.7m shares equating to roughly 4% of Thar share capital, Medway/Pouroulis now own 44% of Thar, regarding the 93m transfer for 8.7% from 66.3% to 75%. Pretransfer 44% of the 93m belongs to Pouroulis (41m) other 56% to general Thar holders, post transfer due to KH holding structure 25% of the 93m directly belongs to Medway (23.25m) and of the remaining 75% (69.75m) 44% belongs to Medway (30.6M). Pre transfer Medway owns of the 93m 40.9 post transfer 54. What is happening with this Thar money being transferred to K H via acquired additional shares, if going on mine build fine but can someone verify. Thar IR refer to Karo as "they" but as Medway/Pouroulis run and own 44% of Thar and KH is a Pouroulis idea majority sold to Thar 75%, 25% directly held by Pouroulis. Karo is not quote they but clearly us. My end conclusion based on the shareholding structure and general appearance of this is as so, Karo a Pouroulis idea requiring funds, Thar is the pocket to fund idea cost to Pouroulis 40/44%, other 56/60% cost to general Thar holders, benefit to Pouroulis in venture 44% of Tharisa's 75/80% stake in Karo plus Medway/Pouroulis direct 20% stake in Karo holding, so Pouroulis costs 40/44% Pouroulis benefit 55% cost to general Thar holders at 56-60% benefit 45%. This is in regard to Karo holdings and does not take into account Zimbabwean government 15% holding in Karo platinum. Seeing as Pouroulis is doing all the work I'd say that this dynamic is fair, opinions and outstanding concerns?
Dear LSE Community
I refer to posts over the past few days and would like to express my disappointment at some comments which are not in line with the stated policy and Member Chat Rules of the LSE (specifically rule 4 and 5c) and I have reported such to the LSE, particular those referring to Tharisa as being corrupt or insinuating that we are not aware of our regulatory obligations wrt to disclosing information. We have also notified our legal team of these comments.
Tharisa, since joining this community has always been transparent in the information we provide, particular on clarifications, as often this info is in the public domain and we know quicker than most where to find this, while providing insight into our business, within the framework of the regulatory rules we live by.
To insinuate that we did something untoward in the Karo transaction is simply offsides, with all the relevant information available in the public documents, if not in the AR, in the IFRS AFS that we also publish on our website, which often shows more detail than the AR.
While some bloggers have acknowledged the error in their calculations, the damage of spreading incorrect information is harmful and can be construed as market manipulation.
Tharisa’s strategy has been clear since we listed and Karo is a vital cog in that execution, but the Company has never and will not jeopardise the business for the sake of growth or diversification. We have been open and transparent in the Karo transaction
I enjoy the blogging as it creates an information flow and market interest and I will continue to participate in the interaction. As a Company, we will not tolerate insults, misinformation, defamatory comments or character insults, in any form.
IDG