Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the 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.
The "Boss" delusional or scammed or just plain stupid or dodgy.... surely not ?? Good weekend all.. remember in Kurt some people trust..
Good investigating Eric
Vardar either saw Kurt coming or something very dodgy went on there, as aren't they old Uni pals? £3m invested and nothing seemingly to show for it apart from a low SP, a shroud of mystery and words like 'epithermal' and 'porphyry' and of course 'very exciting' and 'potential'.
I hope I am very wrong but words like scam, delusion, fraud and collusion come to mind; and based upon the info shareholders have they seem to be more apt.
It also seems odd to me that we’d invest so much and increase our percentage holding to around 61%, only to then spin the company out. Why bother doing all of that, when we could have perhaps invested in a different company that was already producing or had discovered a commercially viable asset.
Anyway, just mulling things over somewhat, in the absence of news. Worse case scenario is that the Vardar lads saw Kurt coming and took advantage, really sold it to him, because the reality is there is still no proven top-notch asset.
Prof, thanks. I’ve been pondering about Vardar, insofar as the use of ‘state-of-the-art’ technology. That must have cost quite a bit, and it seems that it was there in place before we began funding Vardar in return for percentages each time. So I was wondering who funded the purchase of the technology and why does it feel that we’ve been the only company bankrolling Vardar since we started investing. Their last posted accounts revealing an increase in asset value coinciding roughly with the money we invested during that period.
I’m not sure who else might be funding them, or why that looks to have stopped. Bearing in mind we haven’t heard of a Spring drill being undertaken, and BEM allocating no further funds to Vardar since January.
Would it fold if we still retained our percentage but completely stopped funding it, I suppose is the question.
Good work EricD.
No Spring drill because we haven’t given them any more cash since the handy £250k back in January.
It says they are viewing “ongoing activities” at Vardar. Perhaps they can ask why there hasn’t been a Spring drill. That we know of!
Röstin, Big Ted and Chris D have visited Vardar. Taken from the BEM LinkedIn page, they posted it eight hours or so ago:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/9131878
Good points. We know we haven’t had the Spring drill at Vardar, and have no commercial grade assets proven there, so what is the point to holding it? We can’t afford to keep spooning money into it as things stand. There was mention from Kurt of spinning it out, but no news or progress on the ground since. The lack of the drill makes it more than likely that will be the one for the chop. Maybe even Kallak. No explanation as to why we didn’t complete the PFS on KN, unless they’ve put it on hold pending the Sami appeal outcome.
No real news to go at on two projects, I feel the most helpful news recently was from Rasmus.
Unfortunately, if you're standing still, you're essentially going backwards. A business like this needs progress, news and regular updates.
A masterplan will be forthcoming at some point, no doubt with more funding required. It's currently just a vehicle to pay salaries.
But to reiterate, I expect a learner and smaller company to emerge.
We’ve had no updates on it, only from ADF, from memory. Not too long to wait now then Pocko. It’ll be nearly a year and a half then since we received the concession.
From memory, I don't think that the company has ever directly referred to the appeal by the Sami. But my guess is that we will get a steer on things when the outcome is known from the Supreme Court hearing on the 19/20 September.
At a guess as to who is pulling the strings, maybe Chris Davies. He’s been involved with BEM a long time, we never hear from him, he has minimal shares and has worked with Ed Bowie earlier in Ed’s career.
Maybe Chris is the equivalent of Blofeld. Lol.
Yeah I find it all very peculiar. Why can't they communicate with us? What is going on in the background as clearly something is! Who is pulling the strings here.
The odd thing is that we are being told nothing, and Ed has yet to make any progress comment to shareholders. Nothing yet apart from updating us on Ulla’s departure.
Yes SJ. He looks good.
The new NED seems the most competent high calibre member of the board looking at his CV.
Pocko, maybe that’s the case, along with the new NED. Either that or employed them with a specific task in mind, that we have yet to learn about. Ed mentions developing the assets, but that doesn’t necessarily mean keeping them, or doing it all on our own. The six month review time is a puzzle.
Do we think Röston and the board of directors will have employed someone (Bowie) more competent than themselves?
Just a thought.
She failed to start the PFS on schedule, for sure, no news of it since either, but we don’t know why BEM changed the target date (and we haven’t had a revised date via RNS) for the environmental submission. There were obviously differences of opinion and Ulla has gone, but yes, it’s another poor outcome in terms of progress so far this year for shareholders. The new CEO will hopefully be sorting through things and making changes. Starting with her.
I’m pleased if it means we have a chance of better.
Eric,
Her brief was simple, tight and specific and she did not deliver. All conjecture beyond that is pointless. Any wages and options afforded to her were wasted, as was a lot more cash on Vardar, late payment fines, continuing to pay Budge etc etc.
The new CEO needs to account to investors for all this waste and directors abject performances.
Lb, we don’t have the exact reasons for her leaving, but we do know that she did not adhere to Kurt’s plans re the PFS to commence in Q2. One point though, is that Ulla mentioned on the Jokkmokk Iron website, that it was BEM’s decision not to now try and submit the environmental application for the end of the year. She made it clear that the decision wasn’t made by Jokkmokk Iron.
But again, we don’t know why the target has changed, or the need for a six month review.
Ulla was clearly not fully engaged with the process of preparing the EIA application.
Working on it for over a year should have put the company in the position of having documentation ready for submission, and not to put it in the bottom drawer!!?!
And what is this utter rubbish about her creativity being stifled?
She had one task, and it was all about facts and figures, accuracy and compliance. Creativity is not required.
Having seen and heard her, in my opinion, she is unhinged.
Prof, SJ, nighty night.
In Ed we trust………….