Member Info for BorderBob

Everyone seems to think that Ganfeng’s objective is to own 100% of BCN. As I proposed months ago, what if their objective is simply to prevent some other company from owning more than 50% of BCN? Someone with deep pockets, like Tesla, that could make life miserable for them until they backed out?

How much more lithium does Ganfeng get, from owning 100% and not just 51% ? They still have an off-take agreement, unless they give it up.

They save money by not having to buy up all the shares now. Once they have 51% control, what law prevents their delisting from AIM ? What are the shares worth if they can’t be easily traded, the company admits it is running out of money in 13 months and the lithium is staying in the ground for 24?

Ganfeng was prohibited from buying more shares until they made a firm offer. Now that they have, I think it’s obvious that’s what they are doing. Who else pays 67p just for rights to a fourth of a share of ZNWD in a few months, plus your cash back?

And watch the price of ZNWD drop, when hundreds of investors don’t want an insignificant amount cluttering their portfolios.

I think Ganfeng is one step ahead of Dee, and "Scheme of Arrangement" is just a backup plan in case a traditional takeover doesn't work. I think what johnPWH (Price WaterHouse?) has posted in another thread is mostly correct. Or perhaps entirely. Their offer only needs 50% acceptance because that's what they said -- it might have been 80% or higher, but they know they don't need total control. They are hoping that they get to 90%, now or later, because at that point they can force out the minority 10%. (At that point, how is the price determined? Will it still be traded?)
It's sad to see so many people fixated on a project that is dead in the water, when there are so many other great opportunities for lithium investment. I can also foresee a situation where those who hold out the longest, get the least.

@mrcautious "You are my first ever filtered person in 10 years of this board !"

Filtered to make sure you read everything I post?

Appears to me that "Scheme of Arrangement" is a backup plan if Ganfeng can't get the consent of 90% of non-Ganfeng shareholders. There is some mumbo-jumbo about sections 974-991 of the Companies Act 2006, which has that 90% requirement. Hasn't Dee been bragging about something like 12% of shares in his camp? Even if that's 12% of just the non-Ganfeng shares, that may be all that is needed.

I have asked this question a couple times and not received an answer. True or false: At the Court meeting, not only must a certain percentage of shares vote for the “scheme,” but a majority of shareholders, regardless of how much they own, must also approve it.

I’m not on Dee’s mailing list but if this statement is true, I would expect him to be advising followers to buy 10 shares for each of their ancestors, descendants and upstairs help. And, make sure they vote.

Where did I suggest that private investors would want, or be able to invest in Afghan lithium? The subject of this message thread is “Lithium Prices.” Prices are a function of supply and demand. If Chinese companies can buy all the lithium they want from a neighbor that has huge reserves, what will that do to the price of lithium from the other side of the world?

I will continue to follow BCN and comment on it here, for my amusement and education. If the deal collapses, I may buy back in. If it goes through, there will be some Zinnwald to pick up cheap from investors who don’t want it.

@r7632 "Who in there (sic) right mind would want to have anything to do with Afghanistan?

Same people crazy enough to invest in Mexico and China.

Bloomberg has an article today about Afghan mineral wealth, including a map of where the lithium lies (very close to Kabul). It quotes a recent NY Times guest opinion on what China may now do. Both articles are behind a paywall, but if you don’t subscribe you might have a friend who does.

==When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the global economy looked a lot different: Tesla Inc. wasn’t a company, the iPhone didn’t exist and artificial intelligence was best known as a Steven Spielberg film.

Now all three are at the cutting edge of a modern economy driven by advancements in high-tech chips and large-capacity batteries that are made with a range of minerals, including rare earths. And Afghanistan is sitting on deposits estimated to be worth $1 trillion or more, including what may be the world’s largest lithium reserves -- if anyone can get them out of the ground....

“With the U.S. withdrawal, Beijing can offer what Kabul needs most: political impartiality and economic investment,” Zhou Bo, who was a senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army from 2003 to 2020, wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times over the weekend. “Afghanistan in turn has what China most prizes: opportunities in infrastructure and industry building -- areas in which China’s capabilities are arguably unmatched -- and access to $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits.”==

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-24/china-s-eyes-1-trillion-of-minerals-with-risky-bet-on-taliban?srnd=premium&sref=UBXEvm0h

@ mrcautious “Trouble is how do you get at it as a non-muslim western company ? When the country is now controlled by some of the most violent and cruel people on the planet.”

We were allies of the people who became the Taliban and Al Qaeda, back when the Soviets were losing The Great Game. Your own investment partner, the Chinese, profit from slave labor and practice genocide. The Saudi crime family has blood on its hands but oil revenue in its banks. Give the Afghan mullahs 20 years and they will own luxury hotels in London, just as the totalitarian Sultan of Brunei does now.

This was written eleven years ago by James Risen, who now writes for The Intercept but at the time was a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter who would go on to a lengthy battle, up to and down from the United States Supreme Court, regarding protection of confidential sources. You can look it up:

Just this month (June 2010), American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

The "Saudi Arabia of lithium" memo is quoted in a Reuters article August 19, now behind a paywall. It's also in a 2010 article from the NY Times, which you might be able to access at https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html

BCN has no lithium to sell today, or tomorrow, or next month or next year. The comparison that should be made is what 2023 lithium prices were expected to be in May, compared with what they are expected to be now. Since there is no futures market in lithium, the most we can say is that higher prices have been expected all along. If anything, there are more reasons now to expect a dip by the time anything comes out of Mexico. Other sources, from Cornwall to Kabul, look more promising all the time. Lithium is as common as dirt, except when it’s dissolved in the ocean.

Does China really need Mexico when Afghanistan is just next door?

In 2010, an internal US Department of Defense memo called Afghanistan “the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” after American geologists discovered the vast extent of the country’s mineral wealth, valued at at least $1 trillion.

“The Taliban is now sitting on some of the most important strategic minerals in the world,” said Rod Schoonover, head of the ecological security program at the Council on Strategic Risks, a Washington think tank. “Whether they can/will utilize them will be an important question going forward.”

https://qz.com/2047785/under-the-taliban-what-will-happen-to-afghanistans-minerals/

One thing Sonora has in common with Afghanistan – both are dangerous places for women.

https://fronterasdesk.org/content/1708928/after-longstanding-activist-demands-gender-violence-alert-be-activated-sonora

How do you know the delay is because Ganfeng requested it for their “due diligence”? Do you have insider information? Or is this just a requirement for joining the program to demonize the Board? (Maybe the term should be Dee-monize.)

The Board, after consultation with its independent advisers, may have determined that a better deal should be sought. For example, Zinnwald and/or a royalty interest in Sonora could be spun off to BCN investors. Negotiations take time. Disclosure is prohibited. As the American saying goes, “don’t wet your pants.”

The Board told you in its June 22 RNS that nothing is happening at the site, and won't be for months.

"With early site work ongoing, site works for bulk earthworks, civil engineering, and pouring foundations have been rescheduled to Q4, 2021, in the light of current lock-down and travel restrictions. By extending these work rosters, the Company hopes to provide more time for contractors to be on-site whilst enabling camp accommodation optimisation to ensure room sizes and staffing levels meet the new COVID-19 distancing requirements."

(There are no current lock-down or travel restrictions in Sonora, although there probably should be. The Chinese brought them to Mexico for self-protection. The U.S. government warnings have been in place since 2018, not because of Covid but because of crime.)

Make your own guess as to what they mean by "early site work." That's what I would call what was done years ago.

Bet you didn’t know you could lose your entire investment to an act of God. BCN shareholders should keep in mind the 7.6 magnitude Earthquake of 1887, with an epicenter less than 100 miles from Bacanora. The earthquake was associated with a surface rupture consisting of three segments with a combined length of 101.8 km, the longest normal fault rupture recorded for an earthquake in historic times. The earthquake triggered many rockfalls and landslides and caused ground fissures. Moderate to severe damage occurred in northeastern Sonora, northwestern Chihuahua, southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona and the westernmost part of Texas.

Of course, with no infrastructure in place and no real prospect for any until next year, the loss might be minimal. The lithium would still be there, just rearranged.

Yes, there is a great future for lithium, once they figure out a way to build a grid that will deliver all that electricity (mostly, for now, from carbon fuels). But it requires a very stubborn investor to think that some remote deposit in Mexico is going to outperform dozens of other sources around the world.

You want 16% ? Vulcan Energy Resources, the company that just agreed to supply Renault with lithium from German brine starting in 2026, is up 16% just today. (The deal was announced five days ago.) It's hard work to lose money in lithium investments the past few months, but the BCN faithful will proudly earn that gold medal.

Who is clueless? I asked for an example of a publicly-traded company. You come up with events in 2020 involving a company that was taken private three years earlier.

@mrcautious “Dont understand why you would do this ? The SP is pegged at 67.5p minimum so a 16% minimum upside”

The lithium ETF (ticker symbol LIT) has gone from $80 to $86 in the last ten days. That’s 7.5%. Let’s see where it’s at when/if the BCN deal ever closes.