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@InvestPest - I for one would be very interested to hear anything you find out about the road. Unfortunately I don't believe that the official CRTM communications are reliable, so any independent information is valuable.
The issue of the suitability of the road was known about since CRTM started, so it is surprising that it's recently become the blocker to any progress. The initial prospectus said -
"Access to the project area is from Lubumbashi City to Malambwe village travelling northwest on the N5 (Kasenga road) on good tarred road, from Malambwe one travels in a NE direction to the Molulu project area which is accessible through “Mama Sifa’s” farm on poor dirt road."
"Although the route to Lubumbashi City is mainly on the N1 tarred road, the last 20km are on a dirt road. Although the Company plans to fund the upgrading of about 12km of this road, until this takes place, there is a risk of difficulties getting to the Project and/or trucking minerals produced from the Project for processing as in the rainy season the dirt roads can become treacherous." .
"Road rehabilitation to commence immediately to provide trucks transporting copper and cobalt ore with a stable access road during the rainy season, which typically runs from October to April;"
"One of the first activities that the Enlarged Group intends to undertake after Re-Admission is rehabilitation of the dirt road leading to the Project. Historically, the road has not been well maintained, which coupled with several rainy seasons, has made the road treacherous. Using a road grader and creating a simple drainage gradient would allow the road to be used in all seasons. The upgraded and improved road would in turn allow for the ore hauling trucks to deliver ore to third-party processing plants in the Lubumbashi or Likasi areas, following expectedly successful oxide mining."
This was all written in 2022.
Funding has also been raised on several occasions - the initial raising in 2022 said $320,000 was to be spent on "capital expenditure including road rehabilitation". There was a raise on 9th Jan 2024 of £215,000, which was to be used for "used for advancing the diamond drilling campaign at Molulu and for the upgrade of the public road to Molulu". Then the latest issue of CLNs on 10th April 2024 to be used for "Improve the public road to Molulu".
It's all very perplexing.
Observer101 - agree with everything you say. I still think there are deals on the table. AV has been consistently upbeat about the process, even very recently. I trust in AV and the team to get the best deal for ATM.
I do have a problem with the open-ended nature of the updates though - “we’ll update you when we next update you” type of thing.
I see no reason why there couldn’t be a high level timeline laid out. I.e. we’ll narrow the offers to the best 3 by this date, we’ll go to next level of detail and non-binding offers on these 3 by this date, and we’re expecting to make a decision by this date.
They can always update the timelines if they need to.
This total vacuum is the very worst in terms of communications.
Barclays were appointed on 11th May 2023 to find the strategic partner.
Oh, what happy days summer 2023 were.
AV was saying “…. it is imperative that (Andrada) collaborates with an appropriate strategic partner to realise value from this opportunity within the shortest timeframe”
The share price went from 5.8p to 8.6p over the following 6 weeks.
The process was going to be finished by end September.
Then……well…..nothing on the strategic partner at all.
Operationally the company is doing very well, but they really need to close this strategic direction stuff out one way or the other, or provide a much more detailed update of what is happening.
The talk of US funding, grant aid or loans, just seems bizarre to me.
Russell is being taken through the courts in the US for one of the companies he owns (Baobab Physical Commodities) failing to repay a previous bank loan( to M&T Bank). It's not just the company - Russell himself is named as a defendant in the proceedings.
Baobab Physical Commodities is a subsidiary company of Baobab Asset Management (also owned by Russell). CRTM owes around $1m to Baobab Asset Management, following the buyout of Madini Occidental (part owned by Russell) by CRTM late last year.
So there is a close and unfortunate link between CRTM and the company being taken to court for non-payment of a bank loan.
I've no idea on the details of the case - it might be totally invalid, might be thrown out of court, or Russell might win. Of course, anything is possible.
However, if someone in the US government spends even 15 minutes doing basic background checks - it seems very unlikely that they would have the risk appetite to approve any financing given these connections, especially while the case is still running.
So now, in a Friday evening after market RNS, Russell discloses that he’s been selling shares since November 2023.
On 10 different occasions.
And didn’t feel the need to disclose it, despite being CEO.
During the whole period where there was hardly any real news on road and processing plant, and whilst the share price was in free fall, he was selling.
Sold them to pay a “tax bill”.
You actually couldn’t make this up.
I can’t wait to see what the next announcement is.
What does everyone think of the RNS then ?
Shares in issue now going from around 65m up to 100m - hefty dilution.
Existing/new investors getting CLNs at the lower of 4.8p or a 10% discount - i.e. can't lose. I wonder what the balance is between "Existing" (i.e. Russell and friends) and "New" ? That's a big volume of shares ready to be sold at anything above 4.8p.
Road still at least 3 months away.
JORC pushed further out.
Kastro plant now not going ahead at all - WTF was that all about ? No news in 6 months and then all called off.
$100,000 loan taken in September 2023 is being repaid, along with $79,500 in interest !!! 6 month term and 79.5% interest - nice for the beneficiary of that.
Russell is "delighted" to announce it all though, so it's all good.
So - this InvestorTalk interview, which was originally scheduled for Wed 27th March, was rescheduled to happen today.
Invites were sent, a number of investors logged into the call...............only to be told by the host that Russell had cancelled at the last minute because something had come up.
Of course, things do come up, but on a session that had already been rescheduled, to not be able to give even an hours notice of cancellation. Not a good look.
Buyback total now 1,879,000 shares and they've used approx. $1,327,379 of the $3m total.
They've been spending an average of $73,742 per day.
There are 21 trading days left of the buyback, so if they are to use the full $3m then the daily average spend needs to rise to $92,528 - quite a rise. Obviously that rise will be either through buying more shares, or buying at a higher price - probably a combination of both :-)
They started buying at 51p.
When a company releases an RNS on 19th Dec saying a JORC report is expected to be released in Q1, and then releases another RNS on 8th Jan saying a JORC report is expected to be released in Q1, it’s reasonable enough to expect a JORC report in Q1.
When a company releases an RNS on 8th Jan announcing a placing raising £215,000 and stating “the proceeds of which will be used for advancing the diamond drilling campaign at Molulu and for the upgrade of the public road to Molulu, as previously announced.”, it’s reasonable to expect the road upgrade to have started nearly 3 months on.
I’d be interested to know where you think all the money has gone that CRTM has raised since inception. There’s a lot of money that has passed through CRTM, and yet even with the most recent raise, there’s still not enough left to fix a road that is critical to the one thing the company is meant to be doing.
@seamus - “Can’t see what’s really happening” ?
I’m not sure I understand your point.
You seem concerned about shareholder dilution, but the shares in issue have risen from around 40m to 65m over the last two years. Dilution ? It’s already happening.
Also, the company finished 2023 with just £66k in the bank. That pays Russell’s salary and travel expenses for just 2 months. The raise in Jan 2024 is already being drawn on just to keep the salary paid.
Do you think it’s a good place to be when the CEO cuts the price of his warrants from 40p to 10p and extends the timeline ? Does that not show what’s really happening ?
Where’s the Q1 revenue as promised ?
Where’s the Q1 JORC report ?
I’d truly love to understand the “wider optics” you mention.
I'm bullish about ATM, it's one of my larger holdings and I've held since 2021. My frustration is not about the direction of travel - I'm happy with what they're doing and achieving - it's about the pace they do it at.
To pick one example - the AISC has been a problem since the start, and ore-sorting has been talked about for over two years as a way to improve the feed grade, increase tin recovery and lower costs.
An update on 6th April 2022 was -
· Ore Sorting: This facility will increase tin concentrate production by increasing the current feed grade by a factor of 2 - 4x. The Company aims to achieve this by using x-ray transmission (XRT) ore sorting as a dry pre-concentration method. An XRT ore sorting test plant is planned for implementation during 2022 with full-scale production expected in 2023.
The latest update on ore-sorting was "Commissioning of the circuit is planned for Q1 2025". Let's be honest, that probably means full production in Q3 2025 at a guess.
Things always take longer than expected, I know that. It's more complicated than I can imagine, I get that too. But to give a date, then no clear updates for two years, and then to state it's still a year away ? There's something wrong with that.
The Strategic Review is following a similar pattern.
Like almost everyone here, I believe there is huge value to be unlocked in the assets, but I really think ATM need to vastly improve their communications around their plans and timelines. I can understand people selling if they've just reached the end of their patience in waiting for the "transformational year".
The other disappointing thing about comparing KOD to ATM is share price performance.
Since the day at Lei (David) Teng visited Andrada (22-Jul-2022), KOD share price has nearly doubled, and at one point was over 3 times higher. ATM is now below where it was that day, and was for just one day, 1.8 times higher.
I know it's an arbitrary date, but for ATM to be two years on, and still on a lower share price, is not a good record. It's a different sort of "eye-watering".