Member Info for Castaway

Dodge

Merc did months of DD on Manaila and presumably BP before they agreed any finance, they agreed to lend us the $4mil and did - they were contractually obliged to do the pre finance offtake for BP - which they defaulted on - the pre finance offtake was to be used start BP - Merc delayed it then defaulted.

As far as the BoD new they had the cash to start mining BP when the licence association was granted.

There is so much posted at the moment which has no basis in reality - a complete Fantasy one could say :-)

It's an investment to me - I am confident I bought more today - you pays your money and you see

Fantasy - we have never received one $ from PP yet we have put in $30 mil ish into the development

You see Fantasy without AP we would have 25% of a mine we cannot get any revenues from for many years - we would have gone bust ages ago.

OK Fantasy - first of all - VAST would not be in existence now without him IMHO.

1) He brought BPPM to VAST

2) He brought Manaila to VAST

3) He got us Zagra when we had no nomad

4) He brokered the Mercuria deal

5) He is on the verge of getting us the Marange concession to mine

6) He has brought us the possibility of buying Remin mines

7) He got us 25% of Blueberry for practically nothing

None of the above would have/could happen without AP - as I have said before he is VAST - he has made a couple of mistakes - but less than any previous VAST CEO - it is a very difficult job - almost impossible with the constraints AP has with SSGI and VAST's legacy issues.

Rob I do not see it the way you do points as raised:

AP probably said Manaila will be a profit centre when the processing plant is built - it is the reason for the Manaila offtake and once built will reduce transport costs - AP has explained this many times.

BPPM will be an extremely cost effective acquisition - NPV $60 mil cost maybe $6-8 mil once operating - but diamonds will raise millions per month and that is the priority.

I cannot overemphasize the pressure the SSGI funding deal puts VAST under - read it and you may understand the problems AP has had with funding.

Manaila is shut as it's cheaper to close it than run it over the winter - what's your point? - Merc will be paid but why lose more money paying them?

PP is a great mine,. but over time it has become a burden due to SSGI deal which the previous CEO brokered.

No company on AIM shares much with it's shareholders - AP is way more open than most!

General meeting are NOT to disseminate information that not in the public domain!

Again You are looking at the s/p and not what is actually happening - look at what has been achieved not the effing s/p - you won't make any money buying stocks valued at their true value.

VAST was cheap at .6p IMO and it's a screaming bargain at .16p

V111 when we went to 2.25p I owned 1.25% of the company - I did sell some on the way down - but kept a large holding - I have sold when I thought the s/p was going to drop seriously to protect my equity - i.e. when we were at .1p - I have been buying lately as I think we will 10 bag soon - what have you done?

AP made mistakes and he recognises this - all AIM CEO's do - but your total negativity is over the top IMO

Anyway we invest to make money in the end (well most do) - as I say I want another buy tomorrow so keep up your negativity as I feel this may be the last chance around .2 - you never know though do you?

Fantasy - I think this is a great company and always have done - not due to management (until AP took over), but due to the assets - which AP has exclusively introduced.

VAST was always a risky company to invest in but I (have for nearly 5 years), made loads, lost loads, in the end I am confident I will make plenty.

You however misunderstand the whole company and AP IMO.

Anyway I gave up trying to post the whole of VAST's long and mostly troubled history every time I posted as it gets tiring.

So good luck to you and all who invest in VAST and FFS PLEASE DYOR as many clearly do not!

Thanks Fantasy - I am still buying and appreciate your work.

On a serious note, I agree with your point Fools re. AP, I also think the situation he has had to deal with since he took over has not been fully understood. The constraints the SSGI funding deal has placed on the BoD has made it difficult to fund the company via debt. This is the reason why we now need to seperate ourselves from SSGI and either sell them our share or pay them off.

PP is a good mine and we have developed it only to lose most of it through poor management and economic factors.

We are now in a very promising situation regarding the Marange diamonds and having SSGI debt (and the compromises that come with it) will have to be resolved very soon.

PP is IMO a very lucrative gold mine but we need to dump it and the debt to SSGI to borrow on our other assets and fund Marange - there must be several options but either way we will not see any serious revenues for many years from PP due to the development of Eureka. Marange will provide revenues short term and then we can develop our other assets through debt funding.

The SSGI deal is like a snake crushing our development right now - this is a complex situation and needs plenty of research to understand - back to Jan 2016 - though the history goes back mush further.

I totally agree with TBT - Fools you haven't got a clue mate!

PS - I may be buying some more shs tomorrow ;-)

funding for Marange - which is potentially massive.
The way the contract with SSGI was positioned he had no choice as any loan without convertibles was open to them with 30 days for them to equal or better it.
AP made one mistake - not placing at .6 in September.
OK he is ambitious on time lines but he has delivered on every one.
I am highly confident we will reach mid cap in the next 2 years - the assets are world class.
I trust Andrew Prelea to build this company into a mid tier miner.
I made a decision in 2016 to back AP and I am confident he will succeed.
I am appalled how he has become a scapegoat for general market conditions and the many naysayers on this BB.
He has done a much better job than any other CEO VAST has ever had, brought more assets to the company and I believe will deliver huge profits going forward.
I have been invested in VAST for many years and have seen the ebbs and flows and have made large profits and losses - for the LTH - I am very confident going forward.
DYOR make up your own mind - there are many idiots who post on this BB right now driving it down - VAST has a bright future IMO

FWIW, I think there is much misunderstanding about the Beren loan - AP had no options but to take it one to get

PP/Eureka/Giant are great mines. The problem is that all the cash from PP (we and our partners make) goes into developing Eureka now (and will probably go into developing Giant after that) , so we are unlikely to see any divs/cash up to topco for many years.

We still owe SSGI $4mil ish probably, so IMO (in our current position) we should sell our holding in these mines, reduce debt and possibly get a cash injection to focus on our other interests which will be cash flow positive in the short term.

We will not get anything out of PP etc. for possibly 5 years+ and we obviously need cash now.

The benefits of selling PP etc. are many fold - cash injection (hopefully), reduce debt, free up assets to get debt at better terms and remove the stranglehold of SSGI.

The end result will be a better company for investors ind II's to buy into IMO.

buko - I believe when RP did the finance deal with SSGI he agreed with the other partners in PP/Eureka/Giant etc. that no one will take any cash out until the whole project is completed.

It's not a case of not being able to get cash out of Zim - it's not possible with the current agreement VAST has.

IMO we will not be seeing actual revenues to VAST topco from PP/Eureka/Giant for a few years.

1) SSGI probably need us to repay their loan - they operate in Zim and you cannot get $ out right now, they are developing a mine in Zim (Eureka) and need that $cash outside Zim to buy mining equipment, so to call it in would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. If they were going to foreclose, they would have by now IMO.

2) Current MC is under £10 mil, yet BPPM is worth $50mil and our share of PP $25mil, if we get Marange that will be worth $100's mil

3) Bergen are out for now (probably for ever) - they have been forward selling/selling the shares they received from the death spiral and that downward pressure is now gone. Also I bet all the MM's are short, no doubt expecting a continued supply of shares from Bergen which is now cut off - they need shs and were trying to keep it down today to buy some back.

4) I see no reason why we would not get another off-take finance deal, BPPM will be a profitable mine and it gives access to Rom and the many Remin mines we may yet get.

5) Apart from delay and some dilution nothing has changed from last October when we had an MC of £30mil+ or about .43p with current shs in issue

I think you have to look at the big picture and not get bitter and focus on all the things that have gone wrong. After all you cannot change the past!

Sure there are many things that could still go wrong (but less than last October). We have more dilution (but there was always going to be significant amount) and even if we get to 10 billion shs in issue, IF we get the diamonds and BP running this year an MC of £200mil+ is possible.

So OK the s/p is low and we are all hurting (for good reason) but honestly reading this BB there is too much negativity IMO.

I think we should look at the many positives and not just the negatives.

"Strong Buy" is not a sarky comment from me BTW, I see significant and near term upside.

buko - maybe you could post this comment I was supposed to have made - I don't recall saying anyone should invest in VAST at a certain s/p - sounds like more hearsay?

Put up or apologise!

To be clear - the nomad is present at GM and if AP stated anything that was "privy to inside information" - I am sure he would be censured - so he would not!.

There seems to be lots of information posted by purely hearsay from the GM from some posters who were not actually present but read it and took their own view from other forums.

What AP did, or did not say is unknown unless it was recorded.

Dodge when AP was negotiating the Merc deal lats Ajn he thought BP licence was "imminent" it would have taken into account we owed SSGI cash to release the Rom assets - see RNS it states this "Charge over all Romanian assets to be released on 31 December 2018, or earlier, following repayment of a further US$1.5 million to SSGI and Romanian assets re-charged to Mercuria."

RNS:http://www.vastresourcesplc.com/news/financing-update-proposed-9-5-million-pre-payment-off-take-with-mercuria-energy-group-25-01-2018/