Member Info for candidinvestor

Mr T. I can't see where your posts begin, travel to, or end so I can't comment on them

Gnome, I love your post about gold v bitcoin ...an excellent analogy ..and I used it on my son earlier today.
To me , an asset is something you can ' kick ' literally , whereas Bitcoin for example is an asset you can't even see , let alone kick .
I also told him that I was wearing several gold medals that I had won at the past two Olympics and that the reason he couldn't see them was that they were made of Bitcoin ..he wasn't impressed ..(he is a bitcoin bug)

My view of Bitcoin remains that as a virtual currency, driven purely by speculative supply and demand , it will end up at its underlying intrinsic value , which is zero He pointed out that the same could be said about fiat currencies (sterling money supply money supply is no longer backed by Gold held in the Bank of England Vaults ). It was my turn to look unimpressed and I walked out of the room

I suppose what I am saying is that I don't have a " *""ing clue " anymore. .. maybe I never did.

My Sipp platform is Barclays too and likewise I haven't received my dividend yet either.
When I rang to complain , they told me that they would send me a secure document , when I asked them to earn their fee by following it up for me , that they don't do that , that it's the responsibility of the company
I told them that likewise I won't be paying their monthly fee if they don't follow it up .
They ignored me , they take it out automatically and without fail every month !!
I want to transfer my funds out of Barclays, but I don't know who to transfer it to
Any suggestions guys ?

Good for you gnome. I remember the beer and the cook your own steaks on outside BBQs in the rocks restaurants back in the 1980s
Do they have decent size beer glasses now ?
When I was there, they would drink beer out of a half litre glass , get drunk and offend the Brits and tell them how we couldn't take our beer !!
Back then they hated the Brits ..that wasn't just Sydney, it was Adelaide and Melbourne too, where I also encountered it . They loved the Irish though..
Strangely enough , which I couldn't understand, was that they loved the British Royal Family !
Given that this was back in the 1980s things may have moved on.
I also think it was because at that time , the UK residents there , were those who had migrated earlier from the UK on that £10 ticket . They did nothing but complain when they got there, and insulted all the locals, by calling them a bunch of convicts
Have times moved on since then ?

Thanks you all of your comments .. indeed lots of insight into the history and conspiracy theories of the links between key personnel of both companies under various guises .
There are strong regulatory frameworks in place to prevent any conflicts of interest that may or may not exist and I will take it at face value that these are in place and functioning correctly.
The strategic review and associated due diligence exercise, is designed specifically to identify whether the acquisition of Capital would be in the best interests of shareholders ...reviews of this nature are standard practice and the formation of the team should comprise a cross section of independent members and external experts .
Dasut - you have made it clear that you can't see the benefits of acquiring a company which is only a sub contractor and pointing out the upheaval this would bring to the Centamin board during this period of uncertainty, and yes , that would feature strongly within the strategic review
My view is that it would be beneficial for the reasons I have previously stated ..namely that after the upheaval caused by the acquisition , Capital could continue largely as it does at the moment , as an autonomous subsidiary of the Centamin group. Capital is no longer just a driller, it invests in other companies which are aligned to its operating activities. Centamin could use Capital for drilling contracts of course which would effectively be.done at cost , because any profits capital made from the contract would accrue to Centamin, but as I said, awarding or not of said contracts would depend on the circumstances prevailing at the time.
The ownership arrangement would also allow Centamin to focus it's attention on its own gold mining business as it does at present
Bottom line, I don't like $300 million sat idle in the bank account earning zero return...yes I know it has earnarked some of it for exploration ..but consider this , Centamin earned 5 cents a share in the first half of the current year , Capital earned 1.5 cents . .this would accrue to Centamin..furthermore Capital is on a growth trajectory.. particularly in its investments and you all saw the anouncement on Friday about two of them
I think the acquisition of Capital merits serious consideration; that isn't to say that Centamin acquire it without any form of due diligence .of course not, and I am not going to prejudge the results of that

Ok ..I have said as much as I wanted to say about this , and I think it's time to move on.
Regards all and thank you all for your valued contributions .

I have done it again . Pressed send too soon

Ok my ambition would be to turn Centamin into a group of companies .
.
Centamin parent would carry on as normal and would continue (unencumbered by its acquisitions) as a gold mining only company .., However their short term business development plan would be to acquire a company like Capital .

Why I say Capital is because Capital has its own business development plan which is to invest in other growth companies that have their own business business development plans too, like Predictive Discovery etc

Future exploration costs for Centamin could be met from a number of funding sources, including cash returns from Capital , reduced Centamin dividends (what is the point of dividends when the company share price has lost of over 50% in the past year . ).and tight constraints on their own zero interest earning
$ 300 million cash in the bank

Whether or not the shortage of drilling equipment by Capital prevented them from obtaining the drilling contract in West Africa for Centamin over Perenti would be a board matter for Centamin

So what would I do ...Acquire Capital and give them full autonomy to continue as they are doing They seem to be doing a good job of it so far , and I haven't even touched upon the network of contacts Capital would bring ..

I will contribute more after all comments (hopefully enlightened ones ) come in

This isn't rocket science ..

I am waiting for other contributions before I write the final part.
I don't think people understand where I am coming from . What I am proposing doesn't in the slightest affect Centamins current plans , and all the geologists who have commented favourably on what they heard , reassures about the major part of the Centamin
' group '

Thanks Dasnut...an insightful post..I am out with friends, but I will reply tomorrow,

Thank you Mr B for your well thought through comments.

An important paragraph which got missed off was the fact that as aas mentioned in the article , Capital have a Business development strategy ..
I think that is lacking a little with Centamin

Note. These posts represent my personal views from information I have gleaned from statements which are in the public domain ..but as always DYOR ..

I apologise but several of the paragraphs got jumbled up and important sentences were missed off but I am sure you get the gist of what I was saying

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/961940/capital-ltd-portfolio-soars-in-value-as-aussie-investments-surge-ahead-961940.html

That is the link I mentioned . To continue Part 2

Perenti have debts of $500 million .. I think I saw a reference being made to a " stay in business" strategy buried somewhere in their 200.page annual report ..
Think of the Perth equivalent of Carillion

I wouldn't trust ANS/AUSDRILL/PERENTI to fulfill any longer term ontracts. If Centamin bought Capital, it wouldn't need to

Someone mentioned that if we did acquire Capital that it would go down like a "lead balloon " in the markets..well ultimately the market driver as always will be incremental earnings per share.
In the interims. Centamin net profit fell by 20% to $59 million ..by contrast Capitals net profit leaped 35% to a record $18.5 million , the equivalent of 1.6 cents a share, and on a future growth trajectory .if you double this up for the year , then Centamin have their funds for their exploration budget.

I remain of the view that Centamin are missing a trick here , but I recognise that other people on here see it differently

By all means , contradict what I have said and I might well change my mind ..but one sentence 'research free ' qualitive
Furthermore acquiring Capital would secure our supply chain at a lower cost , since any profits from any contracts would be held within .
The reason the Capital makes profits and Perenti group is their fleet of foot and their ability to carve out niche contracts.

An interesting aside is that the market value of the whole Perenti Group is only $500 million , but why would you want to buy them and inherit another $500million of debt , with no profits to pay it off .

Conversely Capitals market price of £150 million comes with a PE ratio of less than 6..that is extraordinarily low figure..

PART 1 of 2 Hi Mike. . Yes I agree, it was an excellent presentation that's for sure .
Me being a numbers man though, it didn't hit the mark in terms of what I was looking for .
I submitted just one question in the end , which was left out, in favour of questions the equivalent of what did you have for your breakfast or where are you going for your holidays . Yes , I know , they are tongue in cheek remarks .
The only question I wanted answering was to translate everything they said, in terms of hundreds of thousands of ounces of production per year, for years 4 to 10 of their current 10.year business plan , they have already told us, the first 3 years are same, same same .
Are years 4 to 10 the same same same too , because if they are, then we don't have a growth company ,what we have is a same same company , but for longer .
I have no doubt , they will say they can't see that far ahead , that isn't good enough , they should set targets. As a shareholder , I want to see what those targets are , but my question wasn't even raised.
You will recall my suggestion about acquiring Capital , this stemmed from Cowichans original post about forming some form of partnership with them; I thought that was an excellent suggestion...so I researched it further which was why I ventured beyond a partnership and into a potential strategic acquisition, subject to a proper and thorough strategic review and associated due diligence exercise .
Don't dismiss Capital as just a driller,. It isn't.. , 17% of its operating revenue currently comes from mining services , maintenance, and MSALABS. .the plan is to increase this share in the years ahead.
What nobody has mentioned Is that it is also an investor in other companies in the mining sector . One such investment is with a company called Predictive Discovery ..they announced a maiden resource for Bankan project yesterday of 3.5 million ounces of gold . Capital owns a 10% share in it .
They also own a 2% share of a company called Firefinch which recently set up a JV with a Chinese giant lithuanium company called Ganfeng for Goulanina project .. I will post a link for this at the end .

Somebody mentioned that Capital don't operate in West Africa , ..on the contrary , 38 % of net revenue comes from there .

Somebody else suggested that we should use them as an outsourced supplier , competing with AMS and Ausdrill ; well these companies are part of the same group which is the Perenti group which operate out of Perth. Don't be too quick to sound their praises..they spread their resources over 4 continents..which involves lots of fixed costs ..they have no alternative but to take on work with no profit in them .. From a vanity point of view they have world wide revenue of $2 billion , which is impressive, but when you conduct a sanity check , you realise they are not making a profit and havent done for 5 years. .so when you then do a reality check of what is in their bank account , you discover

Razors.. my take was different. He explained that the $300 million was split between $100 million rainy day money , the remainder set aside for capex and exploration expenditure , which would result in the cash reserves reducing to c $200 million ..
The dividend policy would remain in place and would be funded from operating cash flow from profits in that year. .
He maintained that the company could make dividend payments plus finance capex too...in other words he was implying that they could have their cake and eat it.
He then hinted that as surplus cash built up , it might be feasible to engage in M&A activity .which lit up my eyes, but then he went on to explain that as things stood there were few other opportunities around which might interest Centamin ... He did point out that the company would essentially remain a gold mining company . He also hinted that if the cash remaining exceeded what was perceivably required , then the extra cash would be returned to shareholders.

Bleary..the new CEO knows how markets work. Under promise and over deliver. "It's the way you tell it'. you can sell the under promise part as being prudent, cautious but achievable and then the subsequent over delivery part can be hailed a success , and the share price takes off
It always works .. you only need to look at the rapid fall of the share price , when the reverse happened last year

I will reply to this thread , I am just waiting for all other contributions to come in

A word I like to use is ' muddling along' that is what most of us do for most of the time .. until of course a huge and sometimes unexpected event happens. Like Covid last year.

Most governments did respond to cushion the blow, but in doing so, they have no run out of all ammunition.. others prospered from it though . I made a huge amount of money last year with my contrarian 'recovery' strategy for stocks. .

This hasn't been repeated so far this year , with my selection of Centamin , so reading your posts on their prospects goldgnome brings me hope..

Regarding the unexpected shocks .. well the Dow , S&P.and Nasdaq are all extremely overvalued right now , by any measure you choose . The fact that it will crash at some point cannot be in doubt. It will happen. but that doesn't mean that in the mean time it won't continue to get even higher , but it's a bit like an elastic band , you can stretch and stretch it for so long, but then one of two things happens , it either springs back to past its starting point and we have all been there , or it snaps completely ..I am 63 now and that hasn't yet happened in my lifetime, so I have no idea of what that scenario will look like

I guess we all should invest in a little gold , as a last line of defence against an oncoming apocolypse ..

Or maybe I am being too dramatic and instead things will continue to " muddle along "

A bigger risk might be the resulting hyper inflation as governments wont be able to afford the INTEREST payments on their debt , let alone wind it down .

Something will have to give ...nothing like a bout of hyper inflation to erode the real value of debt ..doesn't come without a cost elsewhere of course . In the end it's all a zero sum game .

I do find your comments on this reassuring and balanced. ...Whilst it might be too early to say , I think there may be signs that the share price is bottoming out , and that one piece of good news , released in a less than discreet way, could bring about an upswing in price momentum .
At the very least , in the absence of any bad news , there wouldn't appear to be any reasons to justify any further falls , apart from the gold price of course ..because at the moment, this appears to be the major price determinant.

Not necessarily .. Capital reported a record interim net profit at the half year . It could very easily be set up as a decentralised but centrally controlled upstream asset. Furthermore Capital has contracts with most other mining companies in the area . It might represent a strategic asset .
I agree it would be non core , and maybe too much of a distraction from core gold mining activity , but I wouldn't entirely dismiss it, without undertaking a preliminary due diligence review. .
Of course if the idea were to be dismissed for any of the above reasons , then there remains 30% of Centamins net asset base, cash backed, earning zero IRR

My thoughts Cowichan is that Centamin has $300 million in the bank lying idle. Capitals market value is $210 million.
Centamin should be acquiring Capital not going into partnership with them ..but I have posted about this on another thread.