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Don't be patronising! You've got some fancy piece of philosophy in your head and you're gonna preach it to the boneheads even when it patently is bad advice.
I understand you by your actions. If you prevaricate you're not in the fight. Trust your analysis and your instincts and mine tell me that this bid hugely undervalues the company. An annualised EBITDA of less than x2 of the offer price means you only have to wait 2 years to get your money back.
To the billionaires this is a slam dunk if patsies like yourselves just roll over. Fight and get their respect and maybe get a better offer....?
"i completely believe in addition by subtraction in life"
Taken too literally this means you run away from anything remotely challenging/threatening.
Yes I can see your point but sometimes you have just got to put up a fight. The billionaires just rake it in and as we know the more they get the greedier they become. What are you going to do when they come back for more. More subtraction?
They have to be taught a lesson that yes they'll always win the lion's share but us little people will put up a fight if they go to far. Which they surely have here!
So if my understanding is correct some of the identities of those snapping up shares should reveal their positions if greater than 1%. If not then they are in breach of the rules
It would do no harm to nudge them into action. In our fight publicity (of the bad sort for the bidders) will do not harm.
Dear Questor
I’m contacting you about a share I hold, Shanta Gold (AIM-SHG) and thought you might be interested in some developments that happened today.
In short the company has, without warning, accepted a buyout proposal from a company called ETG. So what you might say, but I think there may be enough peculiarities in the case to pique your attention. They include:
· A premium to the undisturbed share price of 6.5%. This compares to a low of 25% and a high of 80% of the premiums achieve in the main market.
· The reason given for the sudden proposal is a lack of liquidity preventing major shareholders such as Mr Ketan Patel making the statement exiting without “causing a detrimental impact on the share price”. Strange then that he wants to do the opposite
· Complete lack of price discovery. No mention of any market testing conducted by the Board. The company received bids last year but rejected them. No disclosure of the offer price has been made.
· Why has the offer been rushed out without warning just before Xmas. In presentations given by the CEO to shareholders in the last few months he has been adamant that the company was not for sale. What has changed? He has previously announced his resignation but has not actually resigned.
· The Board appears to be completely missing in action. The CEO Eric Zurrin who used to front up all the presentations and shareholder communications is entirely missing in the offer document. Apart from a short message of support, the entire document is fronted by Ketan Patel who, before today, was neither seen nor heard.
· No financial projections have been included in the offer document. However, it is clear that the offer is not overly generous. Using the latest 6 months accounts to June 2023 It is being sold below book value and at 5.6 annualised EPS. However, since then the companies second mine has become fully operational and has even lower AISICs and thus more profitable than the existing mine. Using the latest quarterly release by the company to September 2023 (and which partly reflects the new mine coming on to full production) the offer amounts to less than twice the adjusted EBITDA on an annualised basis.
· The share price until recently has been artificially low as the previous largest holder (Odey AM at 12%) has been a forced seller.
· As mentioned above the entire offer document appears to be written by the Bidco and not SHG’s Board and as such consistently downplays the company’s prospects. Interestingly too, today’s coverage describes the company as struggling. Really? EBITDA more than doubled in the last quarter and cash in the bank. Struggling? I think not!
· And finally ETG Group has not been free of scandal. It recently has been embroiled in Fertilizer imbroglio in Zambia.
So, in short plenty to get your teeth into although I do appreciate it’s Christma
What do you ready to go. It is going. Great guns. Valuation offered by the recommended offer is less than twice annualised adjusted EBITDA for the latest quarter.
No wonder the pounced when they did.
Also I've contacted Questor (Telegraph) but if anybody else wants to help out by contacting the FT etc happy to post my synopsis to save you some time
Yes - contacted Questor with a one page synopsis of the situation. Messages were as follows:
Me: I’m contacting you about a share I hold, Shanta Gold (AIM-SHG) and thought you might be interested in some developments that happened today.
Richard Evans Questor: Thanks, I've forwarded your message to Russ Mould, who has covered it for us before
Me: Thanks - I notice Russ has covered Shanta earlier this year. Hopefully events will pique his interest!
RE: I'm sure they will!
No with circa 700k shares
In terms of how to vote it's worth noting that shareholders have the right to attend an meeting and vote. And boy would I love to do that. The problem is that SHG is Guernsey registered and in the interests of cowardice and cover up will no doubt hold it in that rather inaccessible island.
So unless you fancy a trip you must contact your broker and make crystal clear your voting intentions even to the point of getting them to confirm back to you what your instructions to them were.
They've forwarded my email to Russ Mould who covered Shanta earlier this year.
Since the Board are determined not to let the sunlight in I thought I'd contact Questor with a synopsis of the situation. Being Xmas they'll be winding down but you never know! Perhaps we can embarrass them into behaving properly.
Happy to post the body of the email if anybody wants to publicise the bid in any other way.
That's nearly 700k to vote against now...
OK as promised the ten last buyouts (not takeovers) I have in my database. The figures are the premium to the undisturbed price.
FINSBURY FOOD GROUP 24%
DWF 72%
BEST OF THE BEST 34%
BLANCCO TECHNOLOGY GROUP 25%
CIVITAS SOCIAL HOUSING 44%
THE FULHAM SHORE 35%
NETWORK INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS 64%
XPEDIATOR 46%
DIGNITY PLC 29%
ADEPT TECHNOLOGY GROUP 75%
Looks like we're about to be short changed...
Ridiculous! There must be a lot of simple minded sellers out there! For my sins I'm an avid following of the UK stockmarket and the premium to the undisturbed price is way smaller than the average. I'll be back shortly with some analysis.
In the meantime if you fancy hanging tough and snapping up some shares with the intention of voting against this opportunistic bid, do so whilst the price give you in effect a cost free option (even allowing for the interest you would have earned otherwise)
Can anybody tell me where and when it will be? I can't seem to find the details on the RNS
Hey it's Christmas so why not? so here's my guess. I've got more faith in the production manager at Yani (assuming he's still there!) so 14,000 ozs at $1750. As for Kouroussa let's say 4500 at $2100
Once a shareholder has > 30% of the issued share capital he/she/it must make a bid for the whole company. I've lost count as to what CIG are likely to end up with. > 40% has been mentioned but I've not done to calcs to determine whether the denominator is the whole issued share capital or just the free float.
If it is the former then does this rule apply to CIG? Maybe somebody has raised the issue below but I've not come across it...
Presumably in the new year.....? Anyone have a better guess?
Yeah but I bet those net assets are all intangible - software, capitalised development costs etc. They much more than tangible assets have a tendency with troubled firms to so pooof....
Now you see them now you don't!
If only to see whether there's a dose of insider trading going on here. And there being no RNS - come on -44% is material. The Board now have a fiduciary duty to communicated with the market