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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.
Anyone have any insight as to why the amount raised was £1,603,600 ?
It seems a very specific, and odd, amount to raise. There must be a reason why it's that specific number.
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.
And now Russell has repriced all his own warrants as well, from 40p down to 10p and given himself an extra year to exercise them at 10p.
Doesn’t exactly show great faith in the company does it ?
They've now bought back 1,288,000 shares and have spent approx. $901,837, so approx $2.1m left if they use the full $3m.
They were paying 51p per share when they started. Yesterday they paid 59.26p per share.
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".
If there are any other ATM holders who also own Kodal Minerals - did you spot the small link that emerged yesterday ?
KOD appointed Lei (David) Teng as a Non-Executive Director. Lei Teng is President of the Chinese company Hainan Mining (part of the massive Foson group), who have invested over $100m in KOD to build their lithium mine.
This is the same Lei Teng who visited our Uis mine in July 2022. After this visit, Anthony Viljeon started telling people that the "Chinese delegation" had said "I'll buy this", and that "the numbers were eye watering".
This visit, and others, seems to have fed into the whole Strategic Review process. I wonder if Hainan are still one of our interested parties ?
Is it not better to question, and be sceptical about, any announcements, rather than just blindly accept them ? Especially given the history here.
Owning CRTM shares isn’t a fan club. It’s a public company. The founders have taken other people’s money for their own use. Everyone is free to offer their opinion.
It was stated as 45 days in two different RNS announcements. Then RF said 60 days in the recent interview.
Not a material difference, but it'd make you wonder if there is actually a detailed plan, or if these estimates are still "finger in the air" numbers.
As you say, it is a start, but if I gave my boss the type of update we saw today, he would be saying "So what you're telling me is that you still don't have a plan, because you have a meeting on site today to prepare one. You still don't have everything you need to actually start the project, and you're not even telling me when you will have everything. And this on a project you were meant to have done last year, and then told me would be starting 3 months ago".
So........."preparing the mobilisation plan", "pipes...sourced", "diesel ordered", "ready for mobilisation". Anything actually started then ?
When does the 45 days start ? Or is 60 days ? Is it today, or could it be another month from today by the time those things that are "sourced" and "ordered" are actually delivered ?
Of the maximum $3m allocated for the buyback, they've currently used approx $647,000 buying 930,000 shares.
They've been spending an average of $92,000 per day.
There are 27 trading days left until the 30th April (when the buyback ends), and $2,353,000 left in the pot. Averages around $87,000 per day - so pretty much seems like the buyback running at the same rate as currently if they do use the full $3m.
Good point on the AISC. They'll have to do as you suggest and break it out.
They've said the Strategic Partner is a lithium-only deal, so the true underlying costs of the lithium extraction will have to feed into whatever arrangement is put in place there. That would then make the tin/tantalum side of the operation more profitable as some of the extraction costs would be shared with the Strategic Partner arrangement.