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Anon - just on the placing point - do you really think they're going to raise down here?
I can't see it. It will be heavily dilutionary and that's no good for Mather, Sangha, Charmandy, Caldwell, etc.
I think it's more likely they'd do the treasury shares and a small royalty top up, if it came to it.
That's one of the positives about SOLG. Key people with skin in the game. They won't want to give up that skin.
Anon - I think Scott deserves another year.
He's had one year, less if you consider the merger didn't complete until something like February.
If we get to this time next year then we can assume that everyone in the data room has gone rogue on us and we've not managed to demonstrate a better way of financing and mining Cascabel.
If we get to this stage then we'll be in a spot of bother and IMO, I'd rather have someone heavily invested with stock and options steering the ship than getting rid of Scott now and bringing in some new guy who wants to draw a wage.
We're approaching crunch time and I've just had enough of the company being shrouded in controversy. By that I mean sacking Mather, losing $4m in the fraud, sacking Cazzubbo and Ayten, etc etc.
It's been one affair after another. SolGold now needs continuity and not the soap opera of recent years.
Rich3r - I'm sorry but I don't accept the counter-argument. That's why I'm probably being overly vociferous.
Society and advancements in technology these days in general is all about wielding the sword. The normal man in the street can put it up to the big suit (and that itself is fine) but surely as SolGold shareholders we now have to take stock of the last 3 years, all the managerial changes and board changes and we have to ask ourselves :
- is all the hassle we endured with Cornerstone worth sacrificing just to topple Scott and give Maxit a bloody nose?
- are further unknowns at this stage going to yield the answer that many want, and if so, how?
I think it's fair to say that the counter-argument has run it's course. I genuinely think we're down here because we're floating a less exciting investment case during a period of general pressure on miners and juniors. It's not just copper, it's lithium as well. The whole market topped out last year and it's still subdued.
But, instead of folks blaming Scott, let him carry on his work. Let Bob and Dan do theirs. Recognise where we are in the process and if nothing narierialises in 12 months, then folks have a much stronger case when it comes to disposing of them.
You say that Rich3r but to be perfectly honest, it's getting very frustrating now.
We're in a revolving catch 22 where the same band of investors are bemoaning BoD performance, voting against their re-election and then when one (or more) has to be the sacrificial lamb we end up being drastically weakened.
Look at the BoD two years ago and look at it now. Marshall, O'Kane, Twigger, Clare, Moller all gone. CEO (twice) and CFO (twice) turfed in the same timeframe.
How is any company supposed to fight through this? Yet folks are surprised that the SP has slid from 40p to 8p.
These folks are also bemoaning performance and want more flesh this time around. It's ridiculous.
Enough is enough. We've seen numerous respected officers leave their seats and no bid has been presented.
We put our eggs in the Maxit basket but now folks want them gone because they haven't delivered a takeover in the first year.
What we've had to deal with is hideous and now it's time to recognise our roles in it and give this team the best chance to deliver in 2024.
Eloro - because I strongly believe that is only one viable reading of the current circumstances and events.
I believe the other reading is completely unreasonable and lacks any significant basis, hence me setting out some thoughts yesterday.
Your analysis of 40p-7p is carried out without any level of peer comparison which detracts from your argument.
I feel so strongly about this because I believe SolGold is now reaching the end of the road and we simply cannot have PIs voting for more disruption, more turmoil and more strife just because it makes them feel better.
Nobody said people shouldn't be true to themselves ans to vote against the board if that's how they see it?
You absolutely should follow your beliefs in your actions.
However, it's also totally realistic to have those beliefs questioned, particularly when they are blatantly wrong as they are on this occasion.
We can all try and put a date on a potential sale or monetisation event but none of us know. Those of us favouring Q2 or Q3 2024 are basing this on the outcome of the strategic review and allowing enough time for data room incumbents to review a phased PFS. It also takes into account where the treasury shares may be placed.
On the other hand, what is the logic for nothing whatsoever happening in 2024? Be pleased to hear it.
If you're voting against Scott in 3 weeks time it's because you
A) want to cause disruption
B) haven't been paying attention for the last 12 months
C) believe that the corporate initiatives taking place are completely worthless to the company and it's shareholders
D) a combination of the above.
Add - that's what I was saying. However, it's very hard to change a budget for the following year just a couple of months before it starts when you're employing hundreds more people than your remit carers for.
I do think 2023 spend would have been similar had it been Scott or Cazzubbo at the helm - it just would have been spent in different areas. Cazzubbo would have spent it prepping the next cabs for example.
The time to judge Scott vs budget is 2024. Spend should be halving and he'll need to stick to it.
KapilD - what don't you understand about the stated strategy?
- progress government agreements
- phased development plan 1H 2024
- ongoing strategic review
You might not like what they're doing, but to point to the money spent and say there's no strategy is just poor.
The spend is out of current management's hands. It will have been budgeted for in 2022 or earlier based on employee headcount. If you wanted to judge Scott, judge him on next year's budget.
Fort - did we see much growth from the Rio Amarillo and La Hueca exploration efforts?
How about the Blanca Nieves campaign?
I'm long on record saying that we should have been looking to drill Helipuerto for the nearology with Warintza, so it's not as if you need to convince anyone, but you still seem to think that household names are interested in earn-ins on individual projects. They are not, and generally for reasons I won't go into on here.
Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but like your long-held view that everything was going swimmingly when it wasn't, you've taken a poor stance once again. It shows a critical misread of boardroom dynamics, the progress made by the company in the year and the requirements to get this over the line not to mention an appreciation of how things work.
It's time to detach yourself from the Fort alternative reality because it has failed everyone to this point and it will continue to do so.
Fort - Mather is the very last person in this planet. That would sanction a JV. Your whole argument comes crashing down with that comment as it's showing a complete lack of understanding about the players involved.
Your strategy is the very worst. Every farm out reduces the attractiveness of a regional project but as long as you get drilling excitement to trade your book I suppose that's fine.
I certainly won't be voting them down because I know what comes next. It certainly does matter what the first bid is. It always matters, competition or not. The lower the auction starts the lower it tends to finish.
Fort - do you think that someone favouring as opportune a time as whilst the company is changing CEO to make an offer will be interested in making an offer fair to all shareholders? They won't.
If binning Scott brings a bid event forward then the bid won't be worth the email it is written within.
If you voted Scott out in 3 weeks time, what control do Maxit retain? The guy they inserted as CEO will be gone and they'll be relying on Mather, Charmandy and MacDonald being able to pull enough strings in the background, and there's no guarantee of that.
It's time to stop rocking the boat. You've rocked the boat the last three AGMs and it has achieved Jack diddly. You can afford to do that when waters are calm, commodity markets are buoyant and everyone is happy with their portfolio. You can't afford to do it now where we're fighting the tide, getting smashed by some pretty big waves, etc. The boat runs the risk of overturning.
Your whole thesis relies on there being a wealth of competition. Without it your whole case collapses, and there's no guarantee that they're all waiting for each other to move. Were that the case, someone would have taken the bait by now.
For what it's worth Fort, I'm not against locking myself in for a couple more years. Get the phased development plan out and show an ability to finance it. In a rising copper market, that is the way to illicit a proper bid, not a 20p per share firesale.
Just to put this another way for folks...
If you believe SOLG could catch a bid in the 6 months after getting approvals through from the new govt and releasing a strong phased development plan, why would you elect to change the CEO now and leave the company vulnerable to being able to defend a lowball and negotiate for shareholders?
If you think a bid could land in Q2 or Q3 then binning Scott is cutting off one's nose....
Ignore the first point. Misread on my part.
The SP has nothing to do with this Eloro. Respectfully, you need to try and detach your thinking from it.
Option A takes 6-9 months in a success case and longer if no buyer emerges. Option B is harder to quantify because you don't know how auccessful a new CEO would be now and whether they'd follow the Maxit party line.
Option B carries far more risk IMO. You dispense with Scott and Maxit in 12 months time if nothing emerges and then you're looking for folks who just see SOLg as another payday. Joy.
Eloro -why does finding a new CEO in option A take 12 months but for option B it only takes 6?
If option A comes to fruition and Bob and Dan don't get SOLG sold then it's a natural time to dispense with all 3 of them (Scott included - they'll have had 18 months - 2 years to sell the asset or company and failed). At that point, you'd have to look at raising the capex and pushing on with construction yourself under new management.
I just don't see the point in getting a new CEO now just to follow the same strategy. Please can you explain how that will be productive in any way given what i said yesterday?
Besides, if nobody buys the asset in the next 12 months they will all be paying multiples more when the copper deficit kicks into gear later in the decade. If we have taken a turnkey asset towards productionin the meantime, all of Redknight's targets will be back in play.
Eish - that is part of the problem though. We're not a explorer pure play any more. We certainly haven't been for the last 3years +.
We've been a developer that has run some exploration activities on it's non-flagship assets.
It's therefore not really feasible to measure the company on lbs and ounces of resource found vs metres drilled, particularly when it was clear that no major campaigns were planned.
It boils down to my original question. If you want to see this possibly come to fruition in 2024 then you have to vote and in my opinion you must vote for Scott. Anything else sets the company back or weakens it at a time where the data room incumbents are waiting for that next box tick (phased development plan).
You've got to take into account as well that we're investing in high risk, non-revenue generating junior resource companies. There's always a chance that things might not come to fruition. We're never betting on a certainty with any business and one such as SolGold has its fair share of risks attached.
But I do think, given what we currently know, that the vote at the AGM for the directors is an important one. We've seen company officers potted at the last few AGMs (Mather and Moller) and now it's time to stand firm to get this over the line.
Got a bit more time to share some thoughts.
Right. So Scott Caldwell. The last 12 months has clearly been a checklist, box ticking exercise. Rationalise the workforce, eradicate wastage and bring together the two businesses (CGP and SOLG) into one efficient entity.
Meanwhile, all serious exploration has been put on the backburner.
So, AGM 2024. What is the question? It's simply this:
Do you want Solgold, or Cascabel sold in 2024? In other words, do you want a return in the next 13 months.
If you do, then you have to vote for Scott. You must let the placeholder keep his place. He holds millions of shares and millions of options that are now well out of the money for various reasons. He knows the business having been an investor for as long as many of us on this BB. Lets not pretend SOLG can advertise for a new CEO that will be as incentivised to get the job done.
So naturally, discussion turns to what Scott has or hasn't done these last 12 months. Anything strategic review related can be taken off the table. He isn't leading the strategic review. That's on Bob and Dan. So all this chatter about voting against Scott because the SR has dragged on is just showing how little those people have been reading and listening to what is going on.
Scott is going to be controlling the revised IPA delivery. He'll oversee the phased PFS. He, along with Stackhouse, will have the next financing lever to pull if it gets to it. In other words, analyse Scott for what he can control and deliver and don't hold him up for what he can't.
Also ask yourselves the last time you saw a strategic review with a closing date. You won't be able to. The idea of it is preposterous. You can set all the deadlines you want for these data room incumbents but then you have to hold discussions with those who declare interest and those discussions can go on for as long as they need to. SOLG can draw a final deadline if they like but what happens if nobody has made an offer by then or offered finance by then? SOLG has to then tell the market it can't sell or finance the project. That would be truly wealth destructive.
So be wary of folks making such suggestions. They either don't know what they are talking about or they want the shares to go much cheaper.
It's time for SOLG investors to head into this AGM with the realisation that voting for Scott can make it likely that this will be the last AGM they vote at with the company in it's current guise. Failure to do so, or the decision to vote against, and we're just pivoting back towards the Cazzubbo model. That simply won't work given the CGP and Maxit influence.
Eloro - what does JVing regionals achieve now? Zero.
See my previous reply to Fort. It should have been a strategy 3 years ago but now there is zero point. None whatsoever.
An end date on the SR is also a folly when you have a crucial project plan upcoming in the next 3-6 months.
If folks want to see this through then they need to wait for the new PFS to come out in the wash and back the current team to get that done.
Fort - some of what you say is fair and you won't find me disputing but there's some further context required in relation to some of your points.
1. Cash spend - It is without doubt that SolGold became a rather bloated organisation and one of Caldwell and Maxit's aims was to get back into shape. We booted the CEO, merged, started making swathes of employees redundant and kicked off the SR.
Unfortunately, with that will come a fair chunk of capital wastage. That industry leading exploration cost per lb will have taken a beating, but it's a consequence of taking a large block of licences whilst the cadastre was open, employing the geologists to start getting about them and basically building a company that could morph into a medium sized miner with room for growth.
Ideally, that strategy should have been put to shareholder and stakeholder consultation back in 2017. Had it, Mather would likely have got the idea that most were happy to flip Cascabel back then for £500-750m and we could have saved ourselves a few years and lots of pain since.
2. They could have farmed out the regionals but there are a number of other considerations in play here. The key one being that one of the major stakeholders vehemently opposes joint ventures and is quite publicly on record saying such. It also created a convoluted structure that is less optimal if you have ideas about selling the company. Does an acquirer want a load of 50% stakes in projects with partners that could be AAA or F rated?
It boils back to point 1 and the empire that was being built. I've gone on record many times in discussion to point this out as it's a point of due diligence that any shareholder needs to be comfortable with.
3. They've played a part is destroying the price. As the company has shed it's timber the share price has reciprocated. Part of that is due to the strategy which was to mothball all exploring (thus removing excitement for investors) and effectively do desktop work whilst it talked to stakeholders and suitors.
Add to this a fairly stale ans desolate market for commodities and juniors amongst the backdrop of the wider markets where people can get 6% on their cash and yeah, it's only us lot that are happy to take the risk on SolGold right now.
As for arrogance, I'm not sure what gives you that feel. I've not had any direct dealings but from what I've heard on the grapevine there's no arrogance about this at all. They just don't have a bazzing news release that they can share with everyone to pep them up ahead of voting time.
This AGM is all about recognising the corporate dynamic in play, seeing through the noise to get a feel for what management have achieved and could achieve with 12 more months runway.
If we got to this time next year and we were no further along it would be a different matter entirely.
Fort - you've given new management, i.e. Caldwell a year to produce an event bearing in mind he has started with a bloated company, a PFS that didn't really wow anybody and a geopolitical position thrown up into the air by questionable government practices.
Do you have any real appreciation for how long things take?
It was never ever a case of walking in here, putting a bow on the company and prepping for sale in 3 months. That just isn't realistic.
Communication to the market has been less than what we all want but the strategy taken meant that newsflow was going to shrink. Would you have rather he gone the other way and fluffed the market with news all whilst going round in circles in the background?
To be fair to Scott he is trying to break the SolGold wheel. With the monster that is Cascabel that is no mean feat but some investors are completely misreading what is involved in getting this from where it was to where we'd all like it to be.
Reading between the lines, I'd say we're closer than we (you) think.