Member Info for colinzeal

I believe this is the draft registration statement, which is open to (potentially several rounds of) comments and amendments. When the SEC is satisfied with the responses, they issue a clearance letter after which the registration statement can be declared effective. When the SEC declares the F-4 effective it becomes the official prospectus that can legally be distributed to shareholders. There's then a minimum 20 day notice period followed by a vote and typically a week or so of turnaround. A while to go yet, IMO.

Your calcs look okay @timbo55. It's a volume issue. With only ~4 tonnes of production in Q1 the fixed costs (think equipment depreciation, facility overheads, energy standing charges, staffing etc) swamp the revenue at these volumes. Once the plant is running at anything approaching design capacity, the per-unit economics should be much improved.

Thanks @esduk, it's really useful to have this kind of context from someone who has experienced the twists and turns first hand over several years, rather than just consuming it as research for 18 months, as is my case. (Before I'm chastised for "look at the rise over 18 months, what are you complaining about?", I have averaged up considerably along the way.)

My gut feeling — and I've said this before — is that some of the more 'questionable' things could very much be put down to being spread too thinly. I can't understand how a small team of any calibre could manage so many moving parts, optimally, as they head to where we want them to be. That's a benefit of the doubt I'm open to giving. But this is why I'd like to see some movement/clarity around the position of CFO and, frankly, some executive recruitment as MKAR approaches. Otherwise there's a whole other level of administrative burden coming to an already very busy, small management team.

@Stebol you've been calling the Mkango management "genius" for years. Nothing can be taken away from them turning a "shovel and a wheelbarrow" in Malawi into a viable mining prospect. They've spotted some great opportunities, done some good deals, and as a result we're in a potentially very exciting position. Absolute respect.

Playing devil's advocate for a second, let us not forget that 15+ years in, Songwe Hill is not a mine, Pulawy is not a processing plant, we have f*** all meaningful recycling production anywhere in the world, *years* after it was due, and very little in the way of contractual detail to begin to make reliable projections. You acknowledge, yourself, that they still don't communicate.

In that time we've seen the likes of Alphamin Resources and Thor Explorations build extraordinarily profitable, producing mines, from scratch, in some arguably much more challenging locations/jurisdictions, to much greater effect, with a level of visibility and transparency MKA shareholders could only dream of. Entire mineral provinces have been proved up in this time (got to love the Lundin family — now there's a measure of management capability if ever there was one). If we're conflating exceptional management with "genius" then there are many more worthy, IMO.

I believe MKA will continue to succeed but I get frustrated when production figures and ramp up schedules are conspicuously opaque, only to find out that our long-awaited production is contractually constrained to a fraction of that expected, via a footnote in a presentation! This matters as it ties into cashflow; lo and behold a nasty fundraise was right around the corner! And when the MKAR SPAC timeline suddenly, on the 1st of December in the quarter in which it's due, gets postponed due to missing technical reports, which take months longer to produce. There may well be innocent reasons for these things but we'll never know because we're largely in the dark. Some people are fine with this kind of thing but for me personally it offsets some of the managerial positives.

The assets we have here are so exciting, and I'm sure they can be delivered, but there's still a lot to prove and a lot of scope for improvement.

I appreciate all of the constructive engagement on this board (anything not involving cats ;)) and realise that this isn't a particularly constructive thread, only to say that we should continue to hold management to account and expect high standards.

Does anyone have any insight on the likely management structure/personnel as/when the MKAR deal closes? My understanding is that presently it's the Lancaster management which will effectively become the MKAR management. One of my main concerns for a long time here has been the capacity, capability and experience of the MKA management to oversee the growth we're all expecting. Coupled with an interim CFO, I really hope they can bolster the executive capabilities at MKAR, if only to remove some of the additional administrative burden brought by a NASDAQ listing (which is more onerous than AIM — much less room to hide!).

I don't think many would argue that AIM isn't a crap market for PI's, but I think the reason the MKA share price has disappointed over the past 6+ months is more to do with the fact they routinely miss critical timelines and fail to communicate all sorts of important 'detail' which would help market participants get a more accurate picture of what's actually happening at the company. Trust has been eroded and sentiment seems to have left us for now, which is the inevitable outcome.

Agreed @sonicboomboy. The market is pricing this as if the MKAR listing will fall through or there'll be some kind of 'devil in the detail' which again kiboshes expectations, or at least another significant delay. Let's hope it really is just the 33p placees selling down for a quick profit and that the overhang clears soon.

Less liquid stocks like Mkango trade on the SETSqx trading system which operates via four daily electronic auctions (at 9am, 11am, 2pm and 4:35pm) where trades are not guaranteed to execute, plus a quote-driven market maker system outside of auction times. Brokers with RSP (Retail Service Provider) access (which tend to be the more consumer oriented, UK-centric brokers like HL and AJ Bell etc) can obtain live quotes from market makers at any point during market hours, whereas other more non-UK-centric brokers might only route via the electronic auction book, so those may struggle to get fills outside of the four auction windows and may appear more 'hit-or-miss'. I've never used FreeTrade but I'd suspect they fall into the latter category.

There has been a few passing mentions of MKA — nothing in depth at all. Predominantly around the value in processing at Pulawy rather than the mine or recycling elements. Good on you @esduk for making the case for Mkango, regardless.

Matt's great — nice to see him covering RE's the past few months (he's better known as a coal analyst). Substack here if anyone's inclined: https://therareearthstrader.substack.com/.

"How are you frustrated with the rise over the last year?"

I'm not, particularly, it's been a great investment. I'm frustrated at the moment due to delays and lack of transparency in certain areas, including clear production status and ramp-up schedule for both Tyseley and Pforzheim. I'm trying to understand cash flow and burn rate a little better. I'd like a clearer understanding of the progress being made in other jurisdictions such as Japan and South Korea, as I believe the time is now to be pushing hard in these areas. Mkango isn't the only horse in this race and I'd like us to be leading the field. I don't know if it's too much of a stretch for management to be on top of all of these things given the complexity of each component. When I see an Investor Relations company has been engaged and their published correspondence details don't work, I find it unprofessional and frustrating.

"What info do you think you'll get over the publicly available info?"

I often contact IR as part of my own DD. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it isn't. Publishing dud contact details is a waste of time though, that's for sure, and I'd expect better.

"Can't you work out what's going on from the RNS's? if not then maybe you're in the wrong place"

Not in all areas, no. No need to be snarky.

I wondered if anyone had been able to contact investor relations since Montfort's appointment? Emails to the address (mkango@montfort.london) on their appointment RNS — where it's stated they'll provide "investor relations support" bounce back and the phone number on there doesn't connect either!

I could not be any more frustrated with Mkango at the moment.

Interesting summary of the 2026 USGS rare earth's data as it pertains to NdPr supply, pricing and market structure in the US: https://therareearthstrader.substack.com/p/the-2026-usgs-rare-earths-data-is

@StockGenius Granted, there's a fair amount of noise and bluster coming from the US, but I wouldn't mind MKA sitting on anything like the kind of valuation their state-side counterparts enjoy ;) Yes, AIM/UK I know, but some basic communication wouldn't go amiss. I'd love to see more simultaneous progress across the 'RoW' markets (Japan, S. Korea etc) let alone get more clarity on what's happening in the UK and Germany. I hope you're right about imminent company-changing news flow. I'm sitting very pretty on my investments in MKA so far so I'm happy to continue to ride it out in the meantime. Impatient, perhaps, but I'm sure I'm not alone in seeking better comms, which was really my point. :)

Thanks @esduk. They certainly need to step up their comms/PR. I can't help but feel the management must be stretching themselves pretty thinly here, and not responding to shareholder enquiries is poor. I really hope they can scale up and get some momentum going whilst the sector is hot, otherwise we risk being left behind or at the mercy of one of the big US companies who know how to scale and push things aggressively.

Does Mkango have and kind of formal investor relations contact, or is it literally just Will's email in their website footer? Has anyone managed to get a reply?

Thanks @esduk, appreciate your input.

Hi. Firstly thanks to all the contributors on this board. I've 'lurked' here for a good while and have enjoyed the (mostly civil!) knowledge sharing over the past few months.

I share the frustrations of some on here with the delays in various news streams. I was hoping that progress on the MKAR IPO would underpin the share price somewhat H1 2026 but it seems that realistically we're a good few months away from that being completed, so in the meantime my attention is turning towards operating costs/revenue/cash burn.

I wondered if anyone had a handle on likely revenue forecasts once Tyseley and Germany are up and running (hopefully at least one of them already is!)? Complicated I know, as they scale up and there are unknown inputs particularly with Germany, but any insight would be appreciated. Also, what are people's estimates on current/potential burn-rate? Apologies if this has done the rounds previously.

Ultimately I guess I'm trying to figure out the likely scale/timing of forthcoming fundraises. I think it's naïve to assume there won't be more along the way until the larger-scale US plants come into operation, as the scale of the European plants so far is relatively small, but it would be good to get people's thoughts whilst we're waiting on bigger/better news.

Thanks all.

LOL, this guy is losing his mind 😂 Quoting an alias of his own, quoting another alias of his own, now. Shame none of his personas are profitable! The rest of us just sit back and make buck.

Thanks @pacifico. I don't understand when in-circuit material is counted in production figures, I think that's the crux of my confusion. I hope you're right about 95-100k oz. being conservative, otherwise my point about this years new production being the same as last years still stands, as far as I understand it.

@HarChris - yes, 100k oz. per year base case from Segilola would be wonderful. That's the hope and why I'm invested — just keen to see it realised and understand the numbers a bit more :)