Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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His performance at ARC (just look over on the chat board) has been atrocious. It's very easy to gain 'experience' when you are firmly in the revolving door Brigade. As a Chairman he won't be very much involved with the day to day running of the company, particularly seeing as though he's sitting in First Class on the AIM Gravy Train with multiple 'part time' extremely well remunerated Directorships/Chairmanships.
The only positive thing from that RNS is that for his free shares to be exercisable, the VWAP in the 30 days prior needs to be over 143% higher than on the day of his appointment. So if you are holding shares today, they will be nigh on 1.5 times higher when our new Chairman is able to cash in his first batch of free shares.
It's nothing but a revolving door at the top of these companies, success/failure, matters not, they will simply be 'recycled' into another company if and when they choose. Doesn't really matter to me who the Chairman is, it's Darren who holds the tiller so MTL is a good place to be while he does. I'll give the new fella time to see if he brings any connections that are helpful to MTL. Let's just hope we predominantly stick to GOLD and don't go off looking at dirt piles in Africa with 'potential'.
All the best
Before getting too excited, I respectfully suggest you check in on the ARCM board, and view the comments of it's shareholders in respect of NHS.
@Lee
Thanks for clarifying, I thought that the deal had gone through fully rather than awaiting further agreement in June. Still, I would hope getting more plots agreed now would be best if mine life in Runruno is not predicted to last, though stages 4 and 5 may still yield potential as well as additional site purchases.
I see this as a share to sit on for as long as gold has value to people if all goes to plan.
As we thought, this appointment confirms MTL is aiming high.
Good to see we have acquired a new chairman of such high quality, any one had experience of the companies Mr von Schirnding has worked for?
He seems highly experienced.
The Abra tenement purchase is agreed in principle but not paid for yet, it’s being left till the June AGM to get full shareholder approval, and it’s being done like that for simplicity as the major shareholders loan to the company will have been fully paid down and so the major shareholders become just that, major shareholders and not financiers.
Other than running costs of the mine all spare cash had to pay down the loan, it actually leaves us in a very unique position, most companies have debt even when profitable, we will be debt free and extremely profitable, enough so to make numerous acquisitions without taking on new debt.
@leehardcastle
Agreed with the statement, but all cash profits is after capital expenditure. Asset purchase would still go ahead before cash profits used to address remainder of the debt pile, as has already been demonstrated with Abra tenement purchase
@CV
I have a similar suspicion that a further purchase may be in the pipeline as well, and that MTL's value is being kept low so purchases are kept more reasonable. People are encouraged to raise the price and be stubborn until you get the higher one when a company is valued at a lot of money. The small market cap can have some strategic use
Hi CV,
We will 100% debt free as it’s an agreement with the terms of the loan, we have to use all cash profits to pay down the loan to zero, as clarified in the recent Darren Bowden interview.
Darren Bowden with agreement of the major shareholders have decided to grow the market cap through low cost acquisition's and build a war chest of cash, no share dilution, the next year alone will generate at least $70 million before tax, with possible tax credits accumulated from previous tax loss periods, we may get keep most of the profit for a decent period, initial plans to grow the business via the Abra tenement of which I have a sneaky feeling Darren knows is gold and copper rich, YMC have a drill rig on site and you can bet it’s been busy sampling already, I doubt this acquisition is a stab in the dark.
The 2 billion market cap aspiration is based on multiple incomes and longevity, and I’m positive he has it all planed out, by next month at the latest he and his team turned a loss making MTL with a huge debt of $130 million into a debt free cash generating machine, I’m sure building the business will be a breeze by comparison to the head aches he took on 4 years ago.
Our current valuation has a lot of catching up to do just on current income, I can’t imagine what effect a decent new gold find will do.
My personal view as a long term holding is MTL will not be debt free anytime soon. I think a reasonable size purchase will be made to extend our future beyond 20 years plus.
I’m a long term holding with over 5 million shares and see huge gains in the future.
DYOR and MTL and Darren Bowdon is the future.
CV
Small mistake in my maths, to be accurate, $14.3 million was paid of the debt in 2023 Q1, so if we have an additional $5.25 million free flow cash from both a higher gold price and lower interest amount, $14.3 plus $5.25 = $19.55 million that could be paid off the loan if all other parameters remained the same, with $0.9 million in the bank at the start of the quarter, we could actually pay down the remaining $19.8 million and be debt free from our Q1 production.
The possibility of clearing the debt in 2024 Q1 is based on the 2023 Q1 results:
2023 Q1 results:
Gold sold - 21,442 ounces at an average realised gold price of US$1,887 per ounce.
Gold revenue of US$40.5 million.
Positive free cash flow of US$17.8 million
Mezzanine debt repayments of US$14.3 million
Net debt as at 31 March 2023 was US$69 million.
Gold production of 21,299 ounces recovered from 546Kt at a head grade of 1.30g/t.
Gold recovery was 93.4%
Darren Bowden told us the average gold grade remaining in the 4 years LOM is 1.29g that’s about the same as 2023 Q1 grade of 130g/t
Assuming the 1.30g/t last year produced over a 21k ounce quarter, its clear we can achieve the same this Q1, but at an increased average gold price of $2075 an ounce it could create a $43.5 million income, an extra $3 million, debt interest on $19.8 million is only $0.35 million for the 3 months, where as last year it was $2.6 million on the $69 million outstanding, that’s another $2.25 million in our pockets, so $5.25 million extra free flow cash more than 2023 Q1 which was $14.5 million would give us $19.75 million free flow cash this quarter if all the other parameters were equal, enough to clear the loan.
Wouldn’t that be fantastic news? It’s certainly possible.
Good afternoon everyone, it definitely looking brighter on this side with the paying off of the debt. Also there is still information to come on the reduction of interest rate that was agreed on the rest of the loan. Hopefully we will also get some clarity on if it did happen or not as final payment may be adjusted by this.
Cheers Lee. With all that is going on in the world there seems to be agreement that gold will remain at a $2150 base level for the near future, and even mention of $2500 by summer. Interest rates could be cut later in the year too.
If the April update could combine the zero or near-zero debt with more updates and news on the recent acquisitions it could be lift-off big time for the SP.
Have a good weekend everyone. Interesting times.
Gold has averaged $2060 this quarter so far, but the next 2 weeks should raise our average to around $2075 if gold stays around the $2150 dollar area, that extra income may be enough to pay off the debt in Q1, 20k ounces would generate $41.5 million income, is that enough before costs to pay down the $19.8 million outstanding? It will be bloody close, but if it’s not quiet there, it will be a matter of when in April, what a milestone.
Indeed ..... quite a rare event actually, witnessing a junior productive gold miner achieve debt-free status & then seeing just how quickly the cash pile builds once the debt-chains are cast off - particularly at a time of new record all time highs in the price of gold.
They will have to adjust their valuations very soon as debt will be completely paid off within 2 months max:
'Net debt as at 31 December 2023 was US$19.9 million'.
Marching through record gold prices debt free means even accounting for the reduced ounces from Runruno, MTL will be offsetting a lot of the lost ounces with nigh on $200 per ounce more income from the ounces they do sell.
If we are lucky and gold holds above $2150 for most of the year, between 70-75k ounces recovered and sold would provide considerable free cash flow for further acquisitions.
See where we are when the wider market starts seeing what a debt free gold producer can earn in just one quarter.
All the best
Is listed as a superstock on stockp..a, with a rolling P/E fwd of 3.5.
ROCE of 86% , and a ROE which are 1st out of 149 companies in the metals & mining section for both measurements. An ROA of 36%.
Net dept lowered from 81.1m in 2022 to 48.8mm. It looks as if all is on a roll.
Apparently he/she did have a position after calling the company blind but then had trouble selling out but that was under a different moniker but using the same broken English, if you fancy a laugh you just need to look at the post history one minute ramping a share then he's gone short its laughable he/she has more faces than big ben and that was on top of how gold was going to divebomb back in November.
Probably because gold is still c100 higher than it was a couple weeks ago. Lol.
It doesn't need to climb further, if it just lingers around 1100 & 1200, gold miners are making quite a lot more revenue and profit. Average price matters. Last time we got a spike to 2100+ and then a quick fall down to 1950, benefitting no miners. This time it seems to be staying above 2100, which bodes very well!
Probably because the gold price declined by 1% today while Mtl sp increased by 5% today ....JW
HOC
She is on other boards too spouting rubbish. I found her on HOCH.
Does JWBellamy have a position in MTL? His observations have been repeatedly addressed on this board but he keeps popping up, making the same stale points, wrongly claiming no one here is addressing them. @JW - please can you refresh us with something worth reading if you are going to pepper this board. Much appreciated.
Read broker notes, they forecast declines ahead
How comes none of the rampers on here are talking about the drop in gold today?