Member Info for DiamondGeazer

Apologies F79, I only just saw your reply

Thanks for the correction. Just to hep re the Anglo payments, I know most people don't read annual reports because they are so out of date when they are published, but re the payments going to Unico not Arc, here is direct quote from Arc's 2022 AR ..."making cash payments to Unico totalling up to USD 14,500,000, as follows...": I also checked with the Company last week and that is so. So we only get our share.

Also I would very much welcome some one providing their view as to why we've yet to hear about the 2022 assay results from Botswana?

Hi F79, as always, your postings are constructive and polite. What is your view about the continuing lack of information on the Botswana drill assays?

I've been very clear that I'm in this share purely because Anglo, not Arc management, will be running the Zambian operations, but while I can't but assume that news on the JV is imminent, I'm still shocked by these results. Given that the DD and work with the Zambian authorities is mainly done by lawyers/our geologist, our directors are in effect doing nothing more than running a holding company with a stake in what will hopefully be a very exciting asset managed by Anglo, a very competent company. Yet the BoD have been through around £650,000 in H1. In my experience (unfortunately), AIM mining companies fail far more because the management have little understanding of cash management than from the lack of quality of the assets . Given that salaries alone (2022, NvS £308,000, Remy £233,000, Vass £161,000 - and he actually deserves his), the £60,000 cash we had on 30th June only covers one month of just their three salaries (£58,500 to be exact)... and we had £2.9 million of payables (due within one year) . So I have to assume the directors have not been being paid for the last two months.

Our share of the USD3.5m payment due from Anglo is £1.84m (66 percent at an exchange rate of USD1:GBP 0.8), so that doesn't cover anywhere near what we owe, let alone the £3.4 million the directors are owed for the surrender of the share options.

But what to me is unforgiveable is still no news, or even an update on the Botswana assays. its now clear we couldn't afford to do any drilling there, but sitting on the assay results is a scandal.

Now this investment has become a trade off between how much more we are going to have to put in the wallets of the directors against what we all hope that Anglo will find. The deal may be announced in the next days and will be more than welcome, but the current Share Price is an unfortunate reflection of the way this company is run.

No Hazmat, but unless I am mistaken on dates, we are due the interim results tomorrow or Friday so we should hear something.

Hi Definitely-Yes, I haven't joined mainly because I'm not understanding what you are trying to achieve. I'm not asking for details of your strategy, but If you can help me with these three points, I would be very appreciative.

1. The company has no spare money so taking any of that scarce resource just makes the company go bust. Lets say you get the backing of only 20 million shares and you won 5p a share; that's £1m, so we are bust.

2. Even if it did have spare cash, the Company is legally obliged to treat all shareholders equally so to my understanding, it is not owed to make payments to just one group of shareholders.

3. And any ongoing legal action just puts a stop to any potential deals which we desperately need to rescue us.

So while I understand your frustration, which we all feel (I am carrying over a 90 percent loss), I won't consider joining unless you can help me with these three (what I think are very important) issues?! I would much prefer us a getting together and voting out Bo and the NEDs. Many thanks.

Good luck all LTHs!

Lambo222, I'm not sure what the Kubold CEO could have said that would have meant anything at all until they've agreed a plan for next year? Obviously I hope you are wrong on all counts!

I'm with most of this BB. I'm holding a huge loss, though just for clarity I would mention to Cleverthoughts that a share price cannot fall 104 percent, but I'm going to hold! Reading the RNS's and listening to RE's comments this year, they were pretty that they weren't focussing on Dundas, so while I can't see how Bo can stay, this isn't unexpected but I think (hope) this is a formal clearing of the decks of the bad news. To use a slightly tenuous analogy, during WWII, Churchill said that before El Alamein, we didn't win a battle... after it, we didn't lose one. I hope the next RNS is our El Alamein. Now we have to just hold our noses and wait.

Hibigboyblue, thanks for the extremely constructive reply.

Its only my opinion, but working back from the Annual Report, we only had £616,000 at the end of last year, so I don't see how we could spare any cash in the interim period to pay directors for these surrendered share options, and I assume (possibly wrongly) that they would have to declare any such previous payments in the accounts. At the time they stated that the payments would be made within 3 years; of course they can push them out, and will most certainly have to - after all at the moment its most 10 percent of our mkt cap!!

On Botswana, whether the assay results were good or bad, I believe they should still have told us. Once those assay results are received, my understanding is that the company is actually legally required to release them. The trick some AIM companies have used is to ask the laboratory not to deliver them... to get round that rule. What concerns me, is not just that they haven't yet released them, nor would it be if they haven't paid for the Lab in order to conserve cash while this deal closes... its far more than that; it would imply that they knew (and they wouldn't be a very good BoD if they didn't) that the deal might take this long to close... and didn't tell us. I am sure that running an AIM mining company its challenges, but what shareholders have a right to expect is the truth and transparency; we may not like the truth, but we have the right to have it.

Re your interesting comment about Anglo and Unico, I (and this is just my view) would very much prefer Anglo to directly buy me (and a other shareholders) out. Because of what I mention below about my trust in the BoD, I wouldn't want any such monies going into the Unico JV and then being paid out to Arc; to be spent by the Arc BoD on other mining opportunities. I want to have the option of using the proceeds from a sale to Anglo of making any new investment decision in mining myself, not by the Arc BoD, so I would sell my position on any hint of such a deal, which should still give me good return.

As far as the cash payments go, to me it is simply logical that this is how it has to happen, but I refer you to the investor call in April. I listened to it few days ago and I think it was around the 5 minute mark that Nick mentions the USD3.5m gets paid to UNICO, but Arc seem to have gone out of their way not to broadcast this, and no doubt will expect to gloss over this. I sympathise with anyone who is surprised about this, because they did go on and on about the payments coming direct to Arc.

Thank you again for your reply and for once enjoying the balanced debate. As many have noted, this BB has become poisonous from some of the posters.

Small_Holding, Hopefully we'll hear in the next 24/48 hours, but at the very least we must surely be expecting to hear something at the interims in the next ten business days. Hopefully both.

I'm in this for the duration but only because I believe that Anglo will find a Tier 1 Asset. The deal when it is signed is excellent, and well done for getting it signed, but on virtually every other factor, I have lost all faith in the BoD.

I have been very cautious on the Arc BoD since they surrendered those 75 million share options at 6.9p and gave themselves £3.4m in March 2021 - that is a bill we will still have to pay.. Had they done what they should have, which was to exercise their options... then there is no way they would have achieved anywhere near that price, nor would they have been able to sell that volume in any short period of time (and the directors would have known that selling that amount would have destroyed the SP so they wouldn't have done it). Classic AIM company looking after the directors at the expense of shareholders.

Where are the Botswana assay results? If they were good, we should have been drilling this year. I expect that when they finally release them we will get a mealy-mouthed excuse about how the assay lab had an even bigger backlog than they expected. This is not good enough.

Whether it be the endless RNS's stating that the Anglo payments go to Arc, which understandably upset some on this BB when it turned out that was not so (its possible that the Arc directors simply didn't realise this until someone pointed it out as part of the DD hence the wording in about UNICO which only appeared for the first time in that RNS in April 2023.... or the "weeks not months" (and it is slightly beyond belief that their advisers and therefore the directors, wouldn't have known how long it might take, I think they are first and foremost promoters of spin, not genuine operators.

Even Remy said last year (when asked) that we easily had enough cash to get through to H2 2023... I suspect we are running on fumes; that's life on AIM and the deal will solve this. Do I think we'll have rights issue now? No absolutely not. But even with our share of the Anglo payments we will have to at some point have to pay out the directors - best guess when more news comes through mid next year (and of course it must be at a much higher price than the price at which they cancelled those options, so we should be safe for the moment).

I'm carrying about a 40 percent loss (on my decisions alone) , but I still think when Anglo work their magic, it will be a multibagger. But based on the above (especially Botswana) I would rather the BoD took a 50 percent cut in salaries, cut management costs to the bone and just let Anglo get on with the job. If they find the Copper (very good chance), great, if they don't (low chance) so be it... we all know the risks. Interested in opinions from all except from rampers and trolls.

Hi Aimtodeath. Given the way the company has often talked about this deal, especially in press releases, I completely understand why you think the payments go straight to Arc... but two things which might help: the RNS on 20th April. "Arc Minerals is pleased to announce that through its subsidiary, Unico Minerals Limited (Arc Minerals 67% shareholding, with the balance held by Kopara Investments Ltd), it has signed a binding joint venture agreement...", and I've just checked, and during the investor call that same day (5 mins into the call).Nick actually did say the words "we would get the first payment of three and a half million dollars into Unico..." Hope that helps. Very easy to have missed it.

I agree with all your points Fukurokujo79!

Fukurokuju, Arc's JV assets are held through a JV company (Unico) in which we own 66 percent. I know ARC keep quoting the figures you have, USD3.5m initial payment, USD1m a year and USD8m at the end of stage 1....etc, but if we only own 66 percent, then we will only 66 percent of that cash. Its still an amazing deal, and nothing can take away from that, but where Mattk6 is surely right is that over the next couple of years, these cash payments alone don't cover our outgoings (especially with the transaction costs). DYOR.

Polkdotdoor, that has always been my concern. The deal was a two stage earn in for Kubold which gave them 51 percent. the RNS clearly states, "Should KuBold complete Stage I work but not complete the drilling commitment in Stage II before 31 December 2024, 2.0% of the JV company and thereby control will revert to Bluejay with both parties subject to continuing standard dilution methodology". Stage II is their spending USD11.6m or drilling the 15 holes by the end of 2024. In other words, if they chose to just sit there and wait, they get 49 percent of this potentially incredible asset for just the USD3.4m they spent up to Dec 2022 and then could renegotiate on everything moving forward. Its a real "Bo special" of a deal, Lets hope they are too afraid their reputation would take a hit and therefore this doesn't happen.

That's incredibly helpful ASHTON, thank you. And I hadn't realised RE hadn't said the word "drilling", without which, as you say, would make any plan pretty meaningless. Obviously I hope that wasn't because they haven't yet agreed to drill.

If I can bother you for one other opinion. When the JV agreement required Kubold to either spend USD11.6m or drill 15 drill holes before the end of 2024, in your opinion, would 15 drill holes cost anywhere near that amount. I'm asking to try and reassure myself that there isn't an easy alternative (more aero mags...etc) which Kubold might choose to do instead of drilling the ground). In the video RE did 6 months ago with BR Business News (talking about the strategic review and the ill-feted death spiral capital raise) RE mentioned (5 mins 20s into the video) when talking about the merits of Kangerluarsuk (btw I'm still slightly sceptical that we weren't able to drill that because of the ice but so be it!)...RE said Kangerluarsuk was completely exposed (at surface) and unlike a lot of geology in Greenland and "particularly compared to Disko which is quite deep and complex....".

Thanks again. Your posts are very informative.

Thanks ASHTON as always. Given that Rob said they were nearing reaching consensus on where to drill in 2024 (or words to that effect), how do you see BJ (other than being the operators) contributing to this debate, because the targets will surely be based on the data from Kubold's proprietary technology, which I imagine they wouldn't share?

Outofluck, I think your comment about the professionalism and integrity of the Zambian Govt is extremely unfair. Why shouldn't the Zambian Minister update the Zambian people on a very important project when asked a direct question in a public forum... just because it doesn't fit in with LSE AiM disclosure rules. The implication of what you say is surely that he should have replied "sorry I can't tell you because Arc Minerals haven't put out an RNS in London".

I also think we should be giving a huge "shout out" for the person who sked the question!

As to why the SP is sitting at these low levels after what he said... I find completely perplexing.

No, I'm extremely long but I invested to find tier one deposit, not to watch short-term SP moves, however pleasant it is to have our SP moving up at last. I would be extremely pleased to be wrong.

This is obviously confirmation that things are moving in the right direction, but I think its worth bearing in mind that there may be other steps which still need to be completed, so while I'm very pleased, I'm not holding my breath for the signing in the next few days. As long as it happens in the next few weeks (and we don't run out of cash, always my major concern), a few weeks doesn't impact the long-term potential. Good luck all LTHs. DYOR.

Hi all, I guess for low volume penny stocks like BJ, trading platforms like IG Index used to provide important volume and price volatility, especially around news. I m told that IG don't let anyone trade stocks like BJ anymore. Purely out of interest, does anyone know if that is true for most small caps and all other trading platforms?