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the strategy was to have got the funding away before the issuance of the accounts and I'm 100% convinced the idea was to do a deal with Boliden. This would have avoided having to make such a detailed Going Concern statement, which companies really don't enjoy publishing.
BHP/NCM pushed back and have demanded an equity deal which, as yet, has not been sourced. The question is, what have BHP said to the company? Have they said go ahead and we'll stand our corner, or are they playing hard ball? At what stage does our board ignore them and push ahead with whatever's available? Indeed, given market conditions, which DC highlighted, are the debt and equity markets closed to us?
If the latter is the case, the company has only two options: a new and significant strategic trade investor (they tend not to be as swayed by short term market conditions) or, a sale which would be conducted with our backs to the wall - although I remain confident we could negotiate a reasonable price.
The failure to raise cash has put us in a very exposed position and it's easy to understand why this has happened and who is responsible. As Berry said, our board failed to listen to shareholders and is woefully naive about capital markets.

Q, sadly 25p is currently pie-in-the sky stuff.
Anyway, the accounts have appeared and there's much to take in. Of particular note is the Going Concern statement. As of yesterday no firm funding proposals were on the table, but they have gone to great lengths to explain why they're confident of raising cash and have signed-off accordingly. The cash will run out in December or January and they point out that there are various measures which will allow them to continue for a bit longer beyond this time, although none of them are palatable.
We all understood this, so it's not new, but it is spelt out in some detail.

To suggest NM has "given up" on SOLG is pretty daft - he has way too much riding on this.
However, as far as future fund raises are concerned he's looking pretty exposed. Obviously, we can't be certain of his personal situation, but DGR only had Aus $2.5m cash at the end of July and I think it's safe to assume that in the absence of them raising more money, they will be unable to participate in anything we end up doing.
Naturally, this means that a placing/Rights Issue would be last on his list of preferences and I'm sure he was lobbying hard for another royalty deal, which of course brought him in direct conflict with BHP, who, yet again, got their way.
This implies NM finds himself in a tricky situation; so what will he do? Accept significant dilution, or push for some form of liquidity event? If he opts for the former his voice will become almost irrelevant around the table, and any power he had to influence events will be much diminished.
For me, this conflict of interest between NM and BHP/NCM is the key driver of how matters will unfold and it explains much of what has happened over the past couple of years - and it ain't over yet.

Q, not 'almost immediately', it was the same day. But I agree, they'd made up their minds some time before they gave the heave-ho.
Bear in mind this new bloke is interim only and I very much doubt he'd have had any influence whatsoever on the fund raise, which had failed before he was appointed. It remains to be seen how quickly we find a new permanent CFO - bearing in mind it took just over three millennia to get the last one. Mind you, I suppose it's possible we won't need one.

to put things in perspective.
In 1987 I was working in the City and was at my desk as Black Monday unfolded. As the market collapsed by 22% one of the clients of the bank I was working for faced margin calls on the vast majority of his portfolio and in the process lost close to £150m.
He was a very well known figure and never recovered from this disaster.

DF, good post and I suspect most of us are not feeling particularly enthusiastic at the moment.
Your mention of the CFO is interesting. He appeared out of thin air on exactly the same day as AS was given the heave-ho, so clearly the move had been on the cards for a while. Wouldn't we all love to know why?
But, his role is described as being interim CFO and this is not great. Investors will have been unnerved by the rapid departure of AS, although I'm certain they were given more background than we were. Anyway, the point is new investors really do not like this sort of thing. They want to know a company has a fully functioning and stable financing team, particularly a CFO who they know and trust...this is difficult when that person is only interim. The team have a big enough task on their hands persuading people to cough-up without there being a question mark surrounding the CFO.
More than anything else, it's the departures of IH and AS (less so JW), that has raised my wariness levels.

And as if by magic, they come back!

just my computer or have all posts since yesterday at 10.23 disappeared?

Q, yes, the DFS is a milestone for us, but not for BHP. They'll already know that the project is feasible and of course, they don't need a BFS as they'll be funding it themselves.
In fact, your post highlights the reason why BHP wouldn't want to allow us to get to a DFS. 1) it will increase our value (hopefully) and 2) since they don't need it they could easily be thinking "we're not stumping up any more cash for SOLG just so that they can increase the value and benefit their shareholders when the study is of no value whatsoever to us"
As you know, I fundamentally disagree with you about the dilution question.

witnessing the denouement of the power struggle between the company and BHP/NCM? Has their strategy been to fund us to the point where we know just how important the asset is and at a critical moment to then attempt to starve us of cash? When that article in AFR (I think) said BHP/NCM were not prepared to put in more cash, what did they actually mean? Were they referring to the structure of the proposed fund raise or, was it a statement of general intent?
If this is their game it strikes me it's a high risk manoeuvre. The company has proved in the past that it can raise money from other sources and even if this proved difficult, would BHP really push us towards administration? The risk of that route is that in an auction of the assets an administrator has to accept the highest offer and there's no guarantee that BHP would win, particularly with their recent track record. There's also the risk that the Ecuadorian government simply take back the assets/concessions and then parcel them out to other parties.
In the light of yesterday's site visit, it seems possible we are targeting new sources of capital in attempt to circumvent BHP's influence. If this is the case it will be fascinating to see how they react.
Of course, I could be totally mis-reading the situation and everything is sweetness and light between us and them and we are cruising towards another successful fund raise with them contributing their share. But somehow it just doesn't feel like this to me.

Josephi, your last sentence highlights the crux the problem. Our demand for cash is never ending and everyone knows it. I don't believe we have a single institutional investor on the register, with the possible exception of Valuestone, who has any intention of being used as an eternal cashpoint machine.

Bozi, as I said earlier, no one is going to buy in the market at the moment. Obviously a fund raise will happen shortly and it will be at a discount. Of course, the only question is; will the prevailing market price be at the current level, or will it be higher/lower? My guess is that any interested buyer is keeping their powder dry as they believe the issue price will be lower than it would be now if a placing happened tomorrow.
I want to buy more but won't do so until I've seen the details of the funding. Therefore, I'm betting it's going to be lower and I reckon many other private investors are doing the same thing - at least it looks that way from the paltry daily volumes we've been seeing lately.

DBW, yes, I think he may. Had DC proved himself to be more effective I suspect the decision would have been more complicated - but he hasn't.
As it stands right this moment, NM is the OLNY board member I'll be voting for.

At the time I was in two minds about Mather, but when push came to shove I voted for his re-election. It was a bit like those moments at the ballot box in a General Election; people believe they're going to vote Labour, but as the pen hovers over the ballot paper they can't quite bring themselves to do it.
To my mind, and putting to one side Mather's rather unfortunate personal characteristics, he made two big mistakes; first, he brought BHP on-board and second, he started banging on about production. But one thing is undeniable, his interests are exactly the same as ours - unlike DC, who still hasn't put his hand in his pocket.

The trouble is the taxi service they're using is Uber - in as much as they haven't got a clue where they're going. Mind you, that's where the comparison stops: Uber is cheap and invariably they're on-time.

Q, this was a Reach announcement not an RNS. It's for guidance/interest as is not a regulatory requirement.

Fort, the one part of my post I would have picked up on is my assumption that BHP/NCM are onside. In fact, it could mean the exact opposite and this is an F*** You gesture by DC. Who knows?

Fort, if we did we wouldn't be doing this site visit.
Incidentally, in the normal course of events this type of potential investor interaction would be for the purposes of persuading people to invest in the market, however, that's not the case here. No one will buy in the market when they know a fund raise is just around the corner.

It's good news they've persuaded people to go all the way to Ecuador, but what this tells me is this: we do not currently have multiple options for financing i.e people already lined-up and ready to push the button, and in fact are still in the process of trying to get investors interested.
We went to market and, for whatever reason were rebuffed, and now we're back to square one.
I don't see this as a negative because it would indicate that we've got a structure in mind that I think we assume has the blessing of BHP/NCM.

But not the one we are waiting for.