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Whilst there have been several comments by main board members that hint at potential developments we know not whether the board intend to approach the various assets in a multi-faceted way. However it would be easy to break the main elements down to tax losses, Victoria (Creswick, Bailiestonand Tambo) and Lolworth. MW recently referred to "inbound enquiries" from someone or someones east of our Lolworth tenements and several posters have posted their desire to see developments at Lolworth. They suggest a JV with a neighbour but JV or not development may require capital. How does one acquire such capital in addition to the monies raised in the two placings.
In my view the answer is available through a sale of the Victoria assets which could include disposal of the tax losses. Should a buyer be interested and given that ECR's subsidiary MGA holds the tax losses (the Lolowoth tenements were acquired by a separate ECR subsidiary LUX in 2022), a sale of MGA to a third party could include several limbs a) the tax losses with ECR receiving an annual percentage over X given years of the saving to the buyer who can offset the losses against its profits over those years; b) a payment to ECR of part of the historical outlay for past drilling at Creswick and Bailieston; and c) a JV in respect of mine development and production at say Creswick and Bailieston and any other agreed area within the Victoria tenements. The return of part of past drilling costs plus income via mining/production and tax losses could come in very useful in supporting ECR's LUX share of a JV at Lolworth or if terms with an "inbound" third party partner could not be agreed, support a go it alone policy of exploration and development.
The board have done a very good job of stabalising the company, raising capital, cutting costs and drilling in Victoria. There have been various discussions via interviews and tweets. Is it not time to bite the bullet and get value from the assets - I advocate selling MGA leaving Lolworth and its satellites as the ultimate asset upon which to concentrate with the proceeds from MGA as the available funds to explore and develop Lolworth and its satellites.
If they've had interest, just enter an FSP, see if the sp rises in anticipation, raise as sp increases at various intervals, if they then got an offer for the Victoria assets alone, and it's a good one, they can decide whether to put it to shareholders and see? or keep it but then abandon the FSP, but the sp will have hopefully risen in the interim and they will have been able to raise more funds. That's what EUA did, and they didn't sell a bean, and had virtually no production either. Entering the FSP would be legit if they are prepared to see what interest they might get in say Victoria alone? If they got a very good offer for the whole company, well who knows, but that's unlikely of course, but yes, Victoria is a possibility, but why not make it public?
An excellent theory daramuda! Any potential buyer of Vic would want to see some potential in the ground and let's not forget that every hole that has been drilled prior to DR and KH has been a duffer, hardly a come and get me ad. I suspect the board are conditioning the MGA package, cleaning the tarnish from the last 8 years and actually producing some evidence that gold exists making it more attractive to a buyer. Throw in the property on brewery lane with planning permission and you have an attractive package with tax losses to boot.
Following on from yesterday, if they sold the Victoria assets, what do you think as shareholders we would get from it? what price?
….BoooooOOM
Dan....Apart from the 2019 drilling campaigns at Blue Moon and Creswick which had very good results.
Yea but follow up work busted the flush unfortunately TS.
Morning TS, the initial holes at Bluemoon and Creswick were good but to date (with the except of DR and KH) there has been nothing of any substance found. My point is that so far we have been unable to prove that any of the licenses included within MGA bare any gold thus not being very attractive to a potential buyer. I believe board are attempting to change this to make it saleable which ties in to daramuda's theory.
I do remember land access being a factor though with blue moon.. The structure didn’t continue west (I think), but what about other directions? Perhaps it’s worth seeing if the quartz heads off in another direction? BM was our biggest hopeful after 2019 and we snuffed it out with the last campaign. I suppose AJ knows what he’s doing..?
I would like to see them have another go at Bluemoon, that was the company maker and when that flopped it was the final nail in the coffin for Vic. As for AJ, we know they've taken advise from a geologist at Anglo American so how much input they've had with DR and KH we don't know.
Well the grades were increased on the Creswick results and Blue Moon's were still excellent.
The problem with BM was that the extension was not as expected (although they only drilled on one side of the original drililling programme.
Creswick is a bit of an enigma , the drilling results there has been decent (with the exception of AH's hail marry drilling ear the end of this tenure)....however there has never been a plan toward commercial extraction.
It's nice getting 80g/t as we did in 2019 and it's great getting the increased widths at Kuboid Hill.....but good results mean nothing unless there is a plan to extract the gold and turn it in to £££s.
That's what we need ....a plan to monetise, not "here's an extra 1 g/t on the re-test and now we're off to another 8 sites to drill with more results, but no forward actions".
The plan could be to drill and get the results, increasing the data bank and therefore giving more confidence to potential future partners/ buyers.....some clarity on the plan is what we need
Totally agree TS
"That's what we need ....a plan to monetise, not "here's an extra 1 g/t on the re-test and now we're off to another 8 sites to drill with more results, but no forward actions".
You've summed up the last 8 years perfectly TS, this has always been the ECR mantra, find a target, move onto another and revisit in a few years. I understand the strategy of adding strings to the bow but if you're never going to develop them it's pointless. I mentioned EEE yesterday but they're in a different league as things stand and if we get anywhere near to replicating what they've achieved then we need to have the balls to go for the resource.
Here's the thing.....
At Creswick the finds have been shallow and nuggety. I'm assuming the nuggety nature makes a cheap concentration possible from host rock. Then truck concentrate / nuggets!!
When previous finds were made the POG was $1700-1850.... it is now just under $2400 and if the Fed lower rates... which they will at some point, $2500 will get breached.
Creswick gold is right near the surface. Blue mountain too. I cannot believe it is not economically viable to extract. watch this space....
The bulk samples may enhance what we already have but even if they don't from what we know it certainly sounds viable to development a small scale operation. The latest tweet from MW states boots will on the ground at Tambo over the weekend. They're wasting no time whilst waiting on the labs, again.
Agreed TalkingSense - needed:- a plan to monetise.
So how is the SP going to rise for share holders if there is no plan to monetise hmmm
Nobody is saying there isn't a plan, just that one is needed. There have no choice but to transform into a producer if they want to hit a £20 - £25m mcap.
I go back to what I said two days ago about Eurasia. They need to follow a similar path to that imo. If they announce a formal sales process, and say they have interested parties, and by all accounts they do have interest, then the sp will undooubtedly climb on expectation of a sale, and they could raise at various intervals throughout the climb. If no one then enters the data room, they can close down the fsp, simples. If Eurasia have been able to get away with it for as long as they did, then why shouldn't ecr follow suit? They need to employ the same tactics! my views.
SV, That's the point we've been making.
There is an upper limit of where the gold discoveries alone can take the SP (barring a bonanza find or significant REE find at Lolworth)
To multibag we need to show a plan towards production, get a JV or monetise the tax losses