Member Info for BorderBob

True or false: Ganfeng can purchase shares on or off the exchange after they acquire 50% ownership and the contractual offer period has expired. They can pay the price in their contractual offer, or they can pay less or more than that amount.

@jam2morrow "Barclays have themselves sold 18M shares short ? or a client(s) of Barclays"

Wouldn't the client have to be filing the 8.3 in their own name?

This is intriguing. At least in my part of the world, the short seller has to deliver any dividend that is paid on the shares, even when they don't own it. So I would expect the short position to be closed out before the Zinnwald distribution, if it happens. But maybe Barclays is selling ZNWD short, also. They could do that with up to 2.5 million shares, without hitting the 1% reporting limit. How does that work out, with the net number of shares they are short here?

The ZNWD chart certainly shows a significant decline since early August.

Despite shared initials I believe BB is much smarter than I am. I hope its strategy eventually is revealed.

“China’s Ganfeng Lithium is unlikely to match a competing offer for Millennial Lithium, according to people familiar with the matter.”

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/ganfeng-lithium-weighs-dropping-pursuit-of-millennial-2021-09-21

–So an offer of 4% more might have been enough for Ganfeng to back down. There seem to be companies interested in Latin American lithium projects – just not the one in Mexico.

Whinge all you want, but also explain the lack of a white knight.

Dee’s recent post elsewhere meant “rely,” not “reply.” His childish insult here tells his potential donors more about his character, than perhaps they want to know.

Never in the field of shareowner message boards have so many words been used to persuade so few that someone’s opinions are so unworthy. I won’t comment on Bonkers' spelling and grammatical errors, other than to suggest that some people should start writing before they start drinking.

No, my post did not suggest that SAV is not in the lithium market. Did you read to the part where I wrote, “Oh, SAV also has that lithium project in Portugal that the locals oppose. They’re looking to finance it by selling off a part. Maybe they’re talking to Ganfeng?”

Yes, I have heard of GGD’s Australia JV with Newcrest (eventual owner of 70%) at Havieron that is in preliminary exploration for gold and copper. The “Pre-Feasibility Study” is still years away. I hope that egg hatches, but it’s not going to give birth to any lithium.

So it turns out that for some people this was not about lithium, it was just about removing stuff from the earth and selling it for a profit. SAV mines sand in Mozambique to come up with a chemical that makes paint whiter. (They also put it in cottage cheese.) POW is literally all over the map, looking mostly for gold, silver or some of the lesser-known battery components. GGP, which can also be bought in the U.S. OTC market, hopes its Australian exploration finds gold, which as a medium of exchange at least uses less fossil fuel than cryptocurrency.

Oh, SAV also has that lithium project in Portugal that the locals oppose. They’re looking to finance it by selling off a part. Maybe they’re talking to Ganfeng?

For the sake of British investors, I hope some of those Cornish projects go public soon. But the true greenies will probably drive the price up, way above the potential profit value.

Johnpwh (Prince of Wales Hotel?) writes, "you pays your money and you takes you[r] choice." I was startled to read what I thought was an American expression of my father's era, from a presumably British commenter. That saying has been around here since 1884, when Mark Twain used it in one of his classic novels. But turns out that it appeared even earlier in Punch, in 1846, and was probably in use long before that.
But indeed, choice is the major question here. Lithium stocks are exploding faster than a defective Tesla battery. I am like a kid in a candy store when I see all the choices, most of them traded on Canadian and Australian exchanges. (Yes, that's an American expression, it seems that the British version is "like a kid in a sweet shop.") BCN was a conservative investment back when you could buy it at 60p, knowing you would collect 67.5p by the end of the year. The worst that could happen was that the deal would not be sweetened -- but it was. Now? You have to feel sorry for the Bacanora monomaniacs.

@trikidiki “ I am happy to vote FOR the distribution IF the takeover goes through but I do not want to vote FOR the takeover.”

An example of post-vehicular equine placement. Voting against the distribution might block the takeover, while voting for it will help remove one more barrier to its success.

And no, there will never be a vote on the takeover.

GF to BCN (in May): “We’ll give you 67.5p per share, but you mustn’t pay any dividends before the deal closes.”

BCN to GF (in June and July): “We’re getting lots of complaints about this, sir. Would you please allow us to distribute half a shilling before we sell out?”

GF to BCN (in August): “Well then, you can give away a tanner’s worth of those pesky ZNWD shares. We’ll be getting 30% of them anyway. But only if our deal is accepted by enough to give us 51%.”

BCN to GF (present day): “Thank you, sir. We’ll have to vote on paying ourselves a dividend out of our own property. Hope we get 75% approval. Glad no one gets to vote on your offer.”

@fozdog " if it looks like most have submitted and they have way over 75% then revert back to scheme?"

You are forgetting the failed plan to defeat a scheme. It's not just 75% of non-Ganfeng shares, it's 50% of individual shareholders. That's the reason we have a contractual offer. Put scheme out of your head. That was then, this is now.

What Ganfeng is hoping for is 90% ownership, because then forcing out the remaining 10% is easy. Where is Ladbrokes when we need them, to put our money on where we think this will end up? Ganfeng won't have any problem passing 50%, but they need 75% to delist, which will convince most to retreat. If they don't receive 75% with the offer, I would expect Ganfeng to start buying shares on the open market for 67.5p or less after the ZNWD distribution, until they reach 75%. I mean, who else is going to be buying shares at that point? They can't pay more than 67.5p but there's no rule that prevents them from paying less.

And to resolve our earlier discussion, it is also now official that we are dealing with clay.

"The nature of the Sonora Lithium Project deposits is a lithium clay resource type and has not yet been mined in Mexico. There is the potential for unforeseen technical and processing challenges which may negatively impact timing of development, capital cost requirements and further equity issuance, production rates and consequently the Company’s financing arrangements;"

Anyone know how much cash has to be put up by the companies that buy these CFD’s? For example, if they need only 20% to control a million shares and can borrow it for a few months at a total cost of 2%, then collect a 10% yield when the deal goes through, they walk away with a 48% profit.

@johnpwh "I suppose you can argue that that the bid in its current form would then have to be abandoned by GF. and reconsidered on different terms. That is starting to play bluff and counter bluff and is not a game I am prepared to play, sorry."

I wouldn't call it a game of bluff, I would call it a game of delay. I'm surprised no one has pointed out that the first corporate resolution requires a 75% vote -- without it, the ZNWD Distribution fails, even with only the required 50% vote. The takeover opponents seem to have crawled into some hole rather than take a position on this, probably because even 75% seems impossible. The only advantage to delay is that some white knight may appear, perhaps after failure to work out a deal for a better property. But then, who wants to buy into a partnership with Ganfeng?

What surprises me is that people are still willing to wait until November for their ZNWD shares, rather than moving to some other lithium stock that may yield the same 10% boost several times over before then. And then buy some ZNWD when the supply increases and its price drops.

The Zinnwald Distribution must be approved at the GM but it is still contingent on Ganfeng receiving more than 50% acceptance of its offer. The offer documents do not have to be issued to shareholders until 28 days from August 25, and the Takeover Panel can approve an extension of this date. A brief extension may be requested until the results of the Zinnwald Distribution vote is available.

There is not going to be a second “vote.” You will receive an offer and you will give instructions to accept or reject it, directly or through your broker. When enough shares are accepted to give Ganfeng more than 50%, the offer becomes unconditional (assuming that pesky Mexican antitrust requirement has been satisfied).

The current price of lithium is irrelevant to a discussion of a project that has no production hopes for two years and probably won’t start for three. To the contrary, rising prices are probably bad news for your grandfather’s mining practices because they just encourage alternative methods and sources. While nothing is being done in Sonora, lots of research is being done on sea water and recycled brine.

It’s like oil. When the price per barrel reaches US$50, fracking becomes profitable, and the traditional wells have competition.

The current trend of lithium pricing is encouraging. I wouldn’t have so much invested in lithium stocks if I thought the price would drop significantly once the many projects around the world start producing in the next year or two. But short-term demand spikes can be offset by long-term supply spikes.

It also matters which lithium you are talking about. There will be two markets eventually, with a new one for “green” product that is environmentally and socially responsible. It will cost more. I don’t see Bacanora in that category.

I just remembered something I was told as a child. A chicken can be hypnotized, or put into a trance, with its head down near the ground, by drawing a line along the ground with a stick or a finger, starting at the beak and extending straight outward in front of the chicken. If the chicken is hypnotized in this manner, it will continue to stare at the line, remaining immobile for as long as 30 minutes.

I hadn’t thought about this for many years. And then I was thinking about BCN investor fixation, and it just popped into my head.

They don't have to own 75% of the stock. They just need "the consent of not less than 75% of votes cast by its shareholders given in a general meeting." Anyone else find that vague? Are we back to the "scheme of arrangement" approval method requiring a headcount, in addition to a share count?

Why would they buy back shares when they could just sell more of them? Ganfeng really needs a local partner in its host country. What they should do is sell 20% as a new issue to a Mexican company with Mexican management and Mexican shareholders -- for example, Grupo Mexico. If minority shareholders want to buy in also, to protect against dilution, their money would be welcome as well. British investors in BCN see Mexico, with a population nearly double that of the UK, as a passive observer to lithium mining, giving away the country's resources to foreigners while taking a siesta under a wide sombrero. The Chinese, with their own experience of colonial exploitation, are too smart to rely on that stereotype.

There are 15 to 20 lithium exploration companies with projects on several continents in various stages of completion. Most of them are listed on Canadian or Australian exchanges. I am not in the UK and I wonder if the obsession with BCN is due to the lack of access to other markets. I own a dozen lithium miners that are traded on the U.S. OTC market. One of them with European involvement is Vulcan Energy Resources, which has doubled in price since May while BCN has been treading water, and gained about 10% since the ZNWD pittance was waved before BCN investors as a reason to hold out another couple months. (Vulcan is not my favorite stock, just an example of what you're missing if in fact you have access to it.)

“Ganfeng Lithium's deal to acquire Argentina-focused Millennial Lithium is under threat after Millennial received a rival takeover offer from a battery maker it thinks is superior to its earlier agreement with the Chinese company.”

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/ganfeng-lithium-outbid-in-battle-for-ma-target-millennial-2021-09-10

It appears that Millennial’s deal included a provision that if someone with a better offer came along, Ganfeng would have to match it.

Bacanora was smart enough to ask for the same term, right? Of course it would be pointless because Ganfeng already had half the property, all of the output and 28% of the shares already tied up. There are many better projects for white knights to prefer.

Here is the proxy form:

https://www.bacanoralithium.com/pdfs/Form-of-Proxy-for-Capital-reduction.pdf

It may have suffered in translation from the Chinese: Note “If you wish you proxy to make any comments on your behalf, . . .”

All those apathetic investors who don't want the ZNWD shares (the only topic requiring a vote) -- you think Ganfeng will withdraw the contractual offer and walk away, or maybe just withdraw the offer of ZNWD shares and keep the 67.5p?