Member Info for DanTheMan105

............….'Now, what HL are saying is that because all of the shareholders are in one nominee account, that is the only account on the register and therefore all HL customers only count as one shareholder vote.

If HL are saying that, then they are either fools or knaves. I won't be voting because I have already parted company with my SXX shares, but I have voted on many company issues through my accounts with ii, and if the above is true (which I doubt), it represents an incompetent or deliberate disenfranchising of shareholders. Oh, and I moved away from HL because their charges were twice as much as I could get elsewhere.

My take on the takeover/ merger of PHE/ W2T is that PHE (2020) regret very much the giving of the exclusive rights to the DMG developments to W2T by PHE (2018), especially since Peel Environmental (a much more solid looking partner) started wanting to give more active support, and the only way of undoing that mistake is to buy W2T outright, giving W2T 40% of the company essentially for nothing, just to be rid of them. Looking from Peel to W2T and back again, I know who I'd rather be in business with.

I think that, sadly, the moral of the story is not to to try to do business with governments in the, ah, developing world unless you've got a gunboat offshore, and a detachment of marines, to encourage them to pay the bills. I imagine their attitude is "What are you going to do, pack up your gas and take it back to London?"

Hi Speedy, yes, but who benefits from all this skullduggery? I can easily imagine a few quiet words in ears to warn off prospective bond investors being possible, but why? The only beneficiaries of the whole ghastly business are AAL, do we believe in an SXX/ AAL conspiracy? If so, SXX would have had to have gone into the Stage 2 process with JPM with the plot already hatched, and I think that's unlikely.

Hey thanks ffc, I don't think I've ever had a tick before, that I've noticed. At the risk of repeating myself, there is a disconnect between the multiple gains that we were all hoping for, and the modest rewards we imagined the providers of billions of dollars were going to accept. I'm sure it works out sometimes, maybe if an oil well comes in with a vengeance the company very quickly becomes self-supporting, but Sirius needs much more investment.

Hi ffc, I'm not a huge fan of charts, except in the most general sense, and the 5-year chart seems to reflect that AAL had a major restructuring in late 2015-early 2016, and since then has progressed pretty well; I can't pretend to glean anything more detailed.
As far as the SXX sale goes, I really can't believe that the whole recent history, including the bond non-issue, is down to an elaborate conspiracy between the Board and AAL to place the company in a position where they would have to accept the 5.5p offer. If it's such an absolute steal at that price, why is there apparently no interest from other major miners (no pun intended!)? It's much more my view that we (I did have shares until very recently) were let down by the bankers over the Stage 2 financing; on the same basis as I understand it is court room practice never to ask a witness a question to which you don't already know the answer, I can't imagine that we went into the Stage 2 process without a pretty solid assurance from JPM (Global Coordinators) that the money would be forthcoming. And at the most critical stage, it wasn't, even at extremely attractive coupon rates. A conspiracy theory of serpentine global proportions might just include AAL and JPM colluding to scupper the bond issue and precipitate the present situation, but I think it's unlikely. Much more likely is that it's one of those things, that JPM maybe overestimated the investors' willingness to put the required amount of money into a small independent company, maybe lacking the resilience needed if anything untoward were to happen with the project, and then the ship going down with a lot of their cash on board.
And I am sceptical about a 'consortium' riding to the rescue providing money that Stage 2 couldn't manage. How many companies have been 'rescued' by private equity outfits, only to find themselves bouncing off a narrow ledge into the abyss? I am obviously very disappointed that Sirius isn't likely to be able to get to production as an independent; had they done so, and the share price reached 50p, £1 even, we would have all done very well indeed. And maybe there is just a just a little 'too good to be true'-ness there. We were hoping to do very well as shareholders, while expecting big investors to put in large sums of money, and be satisfied with a few percent coupons, while the share price multiplied. Why would they do that?
I am not knocking the project; I think it probably has a great future, and will bring great benefits to the region. But maybe it just needed too much money for Sirius to be able to do it alone.

I think it's quite likely that the fall in AAL's price recently, along with other mining shares, is due to the reaction to the Chinese Cold virus thing. Hopefully not part of a more specific trend.

Hi, I notice that a few contributors have migrated from the SXX board, and brought with them a few of the old shibboleths about the viability of the Woodsmith operation:
-That 'the aquifer' presents a critical risk factor in the sinking of the shafts. I'm not an expert in any of this, but I can Google with the best of them, and it seems that sinking shafts through an aquifer is something that the mining industry has encountered, and overcome, before. I volunteer https://www.imwa.info/docs/imwa_2009/IMWA2009_SpychakPregrouting.pdf and I'm sure many other resources are available.
-That polyhalite is very hard, and difficult to mine, breaking even the sharpest mining machinery. Again, I'm not an expert, but Wikipedia tells me that the hardness of polyhalite is 3.5 on Moh's scale of hardness, which is not very hard at all. Perhaps Polyminer2 could let us know if it exhibits a particular kind of hardness not recognised by Moh's scale.
-That it has less Potassium that MOP, and is therefore an inferior product which will fail to find a market. I think that Sirius' offtake agreements suggest otherwise, that it has other qualities of a synergistic blend of nutrients and low chloride (MOP is all chloride) also that, once the mine is built, the mineral will be cheap to extract and turn into a marketable product.
I have to ask why, if it is such a poor product, and so difficult to mine, that ICL Boulby are bothering to use up their precious drill bits on it; surely not just to present Sirius with samples for marketing purposes.
I must say I am confident that if AAL think that Woodsmith is a good idea, they will not be knocked off course by the usual misleaders and turners aside we have got used to reading on the Sirius board.
Oh, and I bought some AAL thre weeks ago at 2152, since which time it did rise several percent, before being hit by the hysterical reaction to the latest outbreak of Chinese Cold, in common with most other mining companies. I don't ascribe the initial rise particularly to the possible aquisition of SXX, but I look forward to the project contributing successfully to AAL's portfolio, and also delivering all the benefits to the local area that were promised under Sirius.

Click the blue bar labelled 'Post Message'.

Pterois - You are David Icke, and I claim my £5.

Well that's it, I have just sold the remaining 1/3 of my SXX shares, which I have been holding since 2013. It occurred to me that I was leaving them invested in case a white knight on a white horse, with white hooves, came galloping in and made a (much) higher offer. And that that very pattern of thought is what has kept me, and I presume others, holding as the SP has fallen from the heights of optimism to the slough of despond. I still believe very much in the project, and will be following it in the future (barring unforeseen circumstances) via AAL.

With the benefit of hindsight (wouldn't it be good if foresight was just as keen?), it seems to me that the one thing the company could have done better might have been to invite a bigger player, like AAL perhaps, into the tent at a much earlier stage, and then it might be that the finance might have been forthcoming to get to production. Anyway, let's not lose sight of the fact that if it wasn't for the vision and energy of Chris Fraser et al, the project might not have ever got off the ground (or into the ground) at all, and there would be no jobs and no economic boost for the region, and those benefits are not going away because SXX is not going to be on the letterhead. Good luck all, maybe see a few on the AAL board in the future. Dan.

Me too. I've held SXX shares since 2013, and it's very disappointing getting bought out at this price, but I still think that the project is a good un' (especially at 5.5p!) and I would like to stick with it, under whatever changed circumstances. I don't think this board is likely to inspire the volumes of ramp and bash we've got used to seeing elsewhere. I bought in here with the proceeds of about 2/3 of my SXX about a week ago. GLA.

Good Point, there seems to be plenty of room; only three posts in the last week, including the day of a confirmed takeover offer, so not many neighbours to offend. AAL it is then.

Well this could be an unpopular idea, given all the wailing and gnashing of teeth i'm seeing at the moment, but I thought maybe a group called XSXX, or similar, devoted to following the progress of the project under its new owners. Though I'm thinking that probably it couldn't happen under LSE, as it's not a listed company.
FWIW, I sold about 2/3 of my SXX just over a week ago, and bought AAL; the rest I'm leaving for the time being. GLA.

Just seen Lazerus's 0848 post. So if he's not going to get rich he doesn't care whether the mine gets built at all. I hope my 0849, which I must have been writing at the same time, indicates my disagreement with that position.

I too agree, that it's not so much the loss on SXX shares as it stands, but the disappointment of not getting to the promised land of production (or so it appears) as an independent. I think we should remember, when excoriating the SXX board, that this is significantly Chris Fraser's project, and his idea, and without his energy Woodsmith might not be happening at all. Anyone inspired by the project, and its potential for the economy of the region, the UK and whoever goes on to own it, still has the option of investing in it. This may be less like the 100m, and more like the 4x400.

I found this informative http://www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rule8summary.pdf?v=21May2018

Well you read it then, smart Alec. Their current positions are already on record; why would they have to restate them?

I've looked at the takeover panel website, but it's still not absolutely clear to me: do the Form 8.3 declarations represent New positions since the possible offer was announced, or are the major shareholders required to restate their positions? If the former, why would the Qataris/ Norge Bank/ Jupiter etc be buying big chunks of equity at this stage?

Yeah, how about "Was it a millionaire, who said 'imagine no possessions'?" (Elvis Costello)