The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
This is why there's a sp movement today:
"Auric Network and Bluebird Merchant Ventures (LSE: BMV) Partner to Provide Gold at a Discounted Price A blockchain innovation group and London exchange listed mining company partner to give the public access to gold below market price.
Auric Network Limited (“Auric”), the Hong Kong based blockchain innovation group announces a partnership with Bluebird Merchant Ventures Limited (“BMV”), a publicly listed mining company (LSE:BMV), to give public access to gold ownership at 15% below market price.
BMV’s goldmines, located in South Korea, have been inactive since the 1970s largely due to policy directions adopted by the Korean government that triggered the nation’s industrial revolution. According to the Korean government, the mines contain nearly 800,000 ounces (or over $1.5 billion USD) of ready-to-mine gold, with a geological upside defined in the millions of ounces.
Joseph Lee, CEO of BMV Korea, states, “Through our efforts we have been able to build on the work done by the Korean government in the 1970’s and revive these mines due to vast improvements in geological understandings and technology. There is a lot of unmined gold.” In the post-COVID world, where global economies are characterized by uncertainty, the public has seen unprecedented levels of demand and interest in gold as a more stable investment asset. However, the lowest market prices of gold are generally unattainable to the general public.
Auric operates a blockchain protocol with its native token, AUSCM, which was conceived in partnership with BMV and Mine Foundation, a commodities investment marketplace. It can soon be exchanged for physical gold at a discounted price. The prerequisite to accessing this opportunity is holding a minimum balance of AUSCMs.
“We are pleased to partner with Auric Network and Mine Foundation to allow everyday people to have access to the economically transformative opportunities presented through physical gold ownership,” Lee reports. “Giving the general public an opportunity to participate in releasing value from the mines as well as give access to an otherwise inaccessible asset class is a win for the average person.” Currently, Auric Network is listed on Uniswap.org, a blockchain-based exchange. To learn more, follow Auric Network on Twitter at @auric_network and BMW at @bluebirdIR."
It seems that the SITC inadvertently put some data on their website causing a bit of a stir. Though the data leak was not related directly to 4d Pharma, they did get a mention in the article:
"Among the multitude of other early clinical results investors will note the large number of bispecifics. There might also be interest in such oddities as 4D Pharma’s microbiome regulator MRx0518 and ICT01, an antibody activating gamma-delta T cells in development by the private French company Imcheck."
Link to article:
https://www.evaluate.com/vantage/articles/events/conferences/sitc-2020-embargo-snafu-triggers-first-movers?utm_campaign=Sunday%20Newsletter&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=97702281&utm_content=97702281&utm_source=hs_email
My understanding is that OPTI are looking at a NASDAQ listing which would require separate accounts for any company that they hold 30% of the shares. They have been reducing their holding here already and are now at 29.8%. Therefore, they don't need to sell any further shares in relation to this.
This is a very shrewd RNS as it displays to Southern Gold, as well as the independent expert, that the current market cap is made up of the South Korean assets AND the Philippine assets. Southern Gold can no longer argue that the current market cap equals, or is based solely on the 50% interest in Gubong and Kochang. It is simply a matter of opinion as to what percentage of the market cap relates to the SK asset and what percentage relates to Batangas. Therefore, the current market cap of BMV cannot be used is assessing the valuation of Southern Gold's 50% interest.
It's interesting to note that Southern Gold has just made a capital raise of $10.2 million (before costs). For me, there are 2 positive, 1 negative and 1 neutral points to this announcement.
Positive
1) Southern Gold may now be more amenable to a structured deal for their stake in Gubong and Kochang (some cash, plus some BMV shares, plus some delayed payment etc.) as they are no longer in any urgent need for an upfront full cash settlement.
2) It shows concrete evidence that there is interest in investing in gold projects in South Korea.
Negative
1) Southern Gold may now hold out for a higher price for their share.
Neutral
1) Southern Gold now fund their share and we are back to where we were before, but the project gets underway.
https://www.southerngold.com.au/announcements/new-strategic-investor-in-102m-capital-raising
I received an e-mail informing me that OF will be part of a webinar tomorrow afternoon.
"This Wednesday 19th August, we will be hosting our second in a series of UK Investor webinars for our UK Investor audience! We are excited to introduce Zak Mir, Gervais Williams, Naheed Memon CEO of Oracle Power and Oisin Fanning CEO of San Leon Energy.
Hear from Gervais on why Small Caps outperform at times of economic setbacks. Followed by talks from San Leon Energy plc, a progressive independent oil and gas company, and Oracle Power, an international power and natural resource project developer listed on London’s AIM market. We will end the session with Zak Mir's top 5 charts! You won't want to miss it"
If it works on here, the link to register is below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/2815899895798/WN_EiSVCQccSMmOoO5yufo01g
I expect we'll get an RNS shortly saying that there is a delay due to COVID, Southern Gold put the below paragraph in their recent activities report. Note the phrase, "there will be some delay in the deployment of expatriate technical staff to advance the projects".
"Bluebird Merchant Ventures (BMV) continues to be the operator of the Joint Venture and manages the projects. Most activity in the June quarter was directed towards community engagement. The Joint Venture has the ‘Permit to Develop’ from the Provincial Government for both Gubong (approved September 2019) and Kochang (approved December 2019) projects. The approval is subject to several conditions largely in relation to physical development requirements regarding safety, community engagement and environmental management. Additional approvals will be through the County government level. With COVID19 impacts to international travel, there will be some delay in the deployment of expatriate
technical staff to advance the projects. Southern Gold joint venture expenditure requirements for the next Quarter will be minimal (
Apart from CD&R, the percentages seem to be based on the old figure for the number of shares in issue of circa 591 million, not the new figure of circa 1.181 billion.
Don't forget the Share Prophets one on the 9th May. He's doing either a presentation or interview as part of the online Shares Conference. There's a £9.99 sign up fee (ticket price) though.
Southern Gold has provided an update on the JV with BMV to its shareholders in its recent quarterly report. My understanding of the 2nd paragraph below, is that separate to the current ongoing financial arrangements being made by BMV, other investors have shown preliminary interest in potentially providing project finance. This indicates that an alternative to the current proposed project finance could be readily available should it be required.
The full text is as follows:
"On 26 March 2020, BMV announced to the London Stock Exchange that it had “entered into a legally binding
agreement with a South Korean company in respect of non-dilutive funding to bring about gold production in
South Korea”. Furthermore, BMV reported that “the agreement creates a path to provide US$5,000,000 of
debt finance that will be repaid from future gold production”. Southern Gold is not a party to these commercial
discussions although there is the potential for any ultimate agreed structure to be finalised at the project level
(as 100% project finance for example). Southern Gold will keep the market informed of any developments on
this initiative relevant to the funding of its 50% equity interest.
Independent of the above, Southern Gold is in early stage discussions with several potential investors with an
interest in the development of gold production scenarios with modest upfront capital costs but with no defined
resources or reserves under the JORC Code 2012. Because of the modest estimated capital costs the recovered
gold requirements to mitigate funding risk are very modest."
Link to the full report at https://www.southerngold.com.au/announcements/quarterly-activities-report-and-appendix-5b-to-31-march-202
Jersey,
He's probably referring to the Share Prophets online share conference. Tom Winnifrith is putting together a collection of interviews and presentations that he's recording. It's £9.99 to sign up for access to it. I'm not sure how interactive it's going to be though, so I wouldn't describe it as a Q&A. It will more than likely be a standard interview format. However, Aidan might well update on project progress.
I'd say that the BOD aren't bothered about raising the profile of the company in order to possibly boost the share price. This is because they represent institutions that own circa 70% of the shares and are just treating the company as a cash cow and collecting dividends. However, that scenario doesn't explain the share by back earlier last year.
Although there are a lot of interesting nuggets of information, I found this quite striking (excuse the puns), "Interestingly Vein No 6, the main vein exploited at Gubong, was found as a blind vein in the hanging wall during mine development work on the other veins." They didn't even know the main vein was there until they discovered it while carrying out construction work on other veins.
I also like the fact that (at Gubong) there is abundant gold rich material just lying around ready to be processed, thus providing quick access to funds in order to exploit the rest of the mine's potential. And according to the write up, if they use a vat leaching method, this processing can be done with a modest capital requirement and is technically quite simple.
Great potential here as they have everything in place bar the funding.
There's quite a bit of info on the Southern Gold Website re the joint venture with Bluebird at https://www.southerngold.com.au/projects/bmv-jv-project
Comek,
Direct quote from their Twitter account, "Massive thanks to all our staff who are working over the bank holiday weekend to keep up the rapid progress on the development of Affimers for a COVID-19 antigen test for the country. "