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We aren't going to see 30p by CoB on Friday. I thought a Santa rally in the wider market might get us close earlier this week, but it seems to have started early and fizzled out today. There is still a chance for a push next week in the low volume sessions but it will take a single buyer with a good quantity of fuel in the tank to make it happen. In the meantime book value is OK as a basis for a robust move in the new year.

Hate to say it but I don't think Seingred is a million miles out. I'm thinking £120 - £125m, a bit more but not wildly different. Even that may well depend on how well PoG holds up above $2k. If it made a run at $2.5k, could see a split payout heading for £150m in overall value terms. However, at the moment it still feels like £125m max (say 62.5p) at the high end, and Seingred's £100m (50p) at the low end. Neither is particularly good, but for all sorts of reasons the gold/silver M&A market seems to be pretty flat at the moment. As I mentioned, a sudden rush to $2.5k might change a lot of opinions, and stimulate a sector-wide repricing. It's a wacky world at the moment and anything could happen.

My view is that the current market value is now pretty close to the book value of Condor's 13+ years of exploration activity. In other words it still represents no return from a company-wide perspective.

As for ultimate value I'm still thinking circa 60p, with perhaps a 40p payout up front and a 20p residual expectation over the next couple of years. That could well go up if PoG made a run for $2500 over the same residual payout period (assuming the residual payout is also tied into the PoG). I see this as increasingly likely as US debt levels increase and it looks more and more like the FED will monetise. I think the U.S. will devalue against gold at some point in the coming years and that, more than anything, will set the cat amongst the pigeons.

I'm struggling to see 70p+ in value terms over the next few weeks, but it could exceed that over the life of a split payout deal. As for the SP it does look like we have some solid buying underway. Momentum is with it at the moment and it would not be surprised to see it at 30p by the end of the week. We may also get a Santa rally due, if it's going to happen, in the next day or two. I believe Santa rallies are usually defined as taking place in the two trading days before Christmas, between Christmas and New Year, and a couple of trading days into the new year (I think!). A Santa rally could promote even more positive sentiment.

Gold is sitting at $2040 as I type. It looks pretty solid above $2000. Any more 'interest rates to fall in 2024' noises from the FED and other central banks and it could be off to the races. I don't think many have much of a choice. Interest rates vs. tax takes in many countries (especially the U.S.) looks pretty stressed.

The stars have aligned for Condor, and for a buyer if truth be told. It's the buyer who will make the lions share of Condor's intrinsic value over the next 5 - 10 years. I doubt if either bidder will want this opportunity to slip away.

I couldn't bring myself to name Arian. It took a good five years to recover the losses on that one, ironically using gold and silver investments that actually worked (Black Rock Gold & Silver helped a lot).

I'm up to the full £20k in each of the past few years switching more into an ISA. I've been holding over some loss making investments with the intention of offsetting against a CNR gain. A dividend based payout would thwart that strategy. I'll have some juggling to do in Q1 next year to avoid the tax problem. It's a better problem to have than a loss though....

I think we need to be careful comparing past expectations with today's situation.

If we had proceeded to build and operate a mine my own expectations were that the share price could achieve well over 100p, perhaps in the 130p+ area. With an increasing PoG, over the years perhaps even more.

The day the sale process was announced it was back to the drawing board. A recalculation based on average sale prices per oz of gold in the ground suggested 60 -65p was a more likely area, with equal possibilities of a slightly higher or lower amount.

The facts fundamentally changed in November 2022, and so did my expectations. If we get 50p+ it will be a disappointment. I'll get my money back and some return but nothing like compensation for tying up funds for 13+ years. It's not been a good investment but at least it's not going to be a certain Mexican silver explorer which really did cost me an arm and a leg.

My main concern is how the payout will manifest itself. Not all of my investment is in an ISA, some is outside that particular tax wrapper. I just hope I don't receive a taxable dividend and have to take an unusable capital loss, at least on the chunk outside the ISA. Now that would really grate.

So, if bidding does become competitive in the next few weeks we could end up with a scenario where a Western domiciled bidder offers an initial payout plus a delayed performance based residual vs. a straightforward cash bid from a Chinese operator. That would indeed make the whole thing interesting. In this sort of situation the SP could go all over the place, and it might even pressurise a Western bidder to match with its own all cash offer. This might well be the best outcome, out best chance of getting somewhere close to what the company is actually worth.

There are so many scenarios here. There are a few interesting weeks ahead.

As we debate the outcome, and wait for the white smoke, I just can't see any reason why the SP should not return to the low 30s over the next few weeks. 35p is just a guess at this point. It may well be a higher initial payout and a lower residual.

This report has only just found its way to me today so I may be out of date if it has already been kicked around on this board. For those that have not seen it, the report is dated December 12th 2023 and may well explain some of the new interest in the past week or so. It kicks around some recent history, but its main contention appears to be as follows (taken directly from it):

'Providing a target price is difficult given the circumstances mentioned above. Here's a guess.

For a bid to be acceptable for the board and major shareholders, it will have to consist of two components:

-An initial pay-off of no less than 35 pence per share.

-Performance-based additional payments that can take the total pay-off to shareholders to somewhere between 50-60 pence per share.

Last but not least, there is an additional potential outcome. Given the number of firms that have been circling this opportunity and with now not one but two potential bidders in advanced conversations, one bidder putting in an official bid could lead to counter-bid(s). A Chinese

buyer would probably make an all-cash bid, since Chinese shares are not generally accepted as an acquisition currency and given how cash-rich some Chinese gold miners are.

As ever, these are my conclusions drawn from following all the publicly available material on Condor Gold. There are no guarantees, and investors need to draw their own conclusions ahead of investing. However, the current facts do point in a certain direction. As the company's

CEO and 2.4% shareholder, Mark Child, said in a video interview on 6 December 2023:

"We continue to get new people interested as the gold price goes up. … The reason why we haven't reached a definitive sales agreement yet is really just the price. … We ask all shareholders to be patient with us. … The directors and chairman own 28% of the company, we all want to maximise the value for shareholders… We are now in very advanced discussions with two particular parties."

My view is that this is an entirely plausible scenario, even the prices suggested appear attainable, especially given the strengthening price of gold. 35p could easily be 40p by January with another circa 20p on top over the next two or three years. Ironically, this brings me back to my 60 -65p scenario of a year ago.

Assuming this is a possible, perhaps even probable, outcome, I'll revive earlier questions about how a distribution would be made, and what the SP might get to prior to an initial distribution. If overall value is, say, 55p, we could see the SP hitting the upper 40s until a distribution, before slipping back to what the market perceives as the residual (post initial distribution) value, expressed in marcap terms (SP). In other words 15 - 20p, depending on expectations of future payouts (less costs of maintaining the company).

As for the initial distribution, will it be a cash dividend, buybacks, or a combination of both?

It's starting to look like a wave of genuine investor interest vs. a P&D raid. Had sentiment in the wider market not been so positive today, we might well have seen even more pile into Condor. As it is I still reckon we are 4-5p below net book value and, optimistically at least, about a third of the potential market value; pessimistically marcap is only half the potential value outcome.

Those moving in now could make some easy money in the coming weeks if the deal finally crystallises.

An interesting development today. The one obvious point is that it doesn't take much to move the SP up a few pence, a point often made. Relative to the dozen or so daily trades that have taken place in recent weeks Condor looks positively liquid.

I've chewing over what the reason for a move at this particular juncture might be.

a) A P&D operation, leveraging the potential hard news aspect?

b) Relief that the looming funding issue (to a deal point) is now resolved. Were buyers put off by this in recent weeks? Are new investors reassured to see JM putting another big dollup of money in?

c) Is is leaky, leaky time? Is hard news of a deal closer than 'new year'? Could it be before Christmas or New Year?

d) Lack of anything interesting going on in the wider stock market?

e) Is word finally filtering out that the marcap of CNR is several times lower than asset valuation? Is Condor about to appear in a tip sheet?

I've no idea. We remain is a speculation world.

What happens over the next couple of days may well cross off one or two from the list.

Mid Jan looks a bit optimistic to me. My guess is March for the deal to be done. I'm not really sure how to interpret 'advanced discussions'. Does that mean 'advanced negotiations', or is it a case of more preparatory work in advance of negotiations? Are those discussions inside or outside of the bid process? Are we at the BAFO stage and these are the final two serious contenders, or are we still in discussions pending bids? Have bids been submitted and we are discussing details/issues etc. arising from those bids? I'm unclear how to read it.

As for the infamous 'in the bag' emoji. Is was never clear to me that was the intended message. It could have been a reference to hoping to getting 'bags of money', hoping to to bag a deal etc. rather than a suggestion that it had already pretty much been settled. In hindsight it's now obvious that the message never was that the deal was in the bag.

Christmas is almost upon us. We might get another 5 to 10 days of business being conduction before stuff shuts down, and it's usually mid-January before normality returns. Having said that the Chinese don't exactly celebrate Christmas and may well be OK pushing through Christmas week. I just wonder if MC/JM would be as enthusiastic. Nonetheless, a deal announcement could still be announced 'subject to contracts' prior to Christmas (an MOU/Heads of Agreement etc.), leaving the heavy (legal) lifting until the new year. Anything can happen.

In the meantime it looks like business as usual for the MMs, albeit the 15p level might appear sticky for a while. I have difficulty seeing the SP rise, or fall, too much in the current situation. A 45p share equivalent deal, while not as good as 60p, would still represent a big leap on today's market cap. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near the 100p+ many of us were hoping for a few years ago.

I'm guessing that this will be my last post until the 29th, subject to some meaningful news emerging. I just can't think of anything useful to say just yet. Even this post is riddled with speculation and assumptions, so time to shut up for now.

It might be a problem if the BoD shared specific details about prospective bidders, including disclosing prices, names, terms offered etc., although I don't see what the problem would be if they are investing blind. They question I would have is more on the lines of whether Condor needs any more money if the deal is a matter of a month or two away, and JM has just put in about 6 months of cash. The only real response to that is that the deal still might not happen, so cash injections still remain useful. Also, it's not entirely certain whether the offer to inject extra cash will actually be taken up. It could be that the news has been put out there in case bid circumstances change in the new year (i.e. we don't actually get a deal, in which case new money will become far more welcome, especially if JM doesn't want to increase his interest to the point where he has to make a bid).

I'm not unduly concerned by the suggestion.

There also remains the big question on whether it will be Nic assets (subsidiaries) that get sold off, or a deal is made for the whole company. I suspect we are still in an asset sale scenario, but an offer for Condor itself could still be a possibility. Could a Chinese entity reverse in to Condor and obtain a listing in some way? Would it be of value to them?

He underlines the point that most of the world couldn't really give a toss about some targeted U.S. sanctions on Nic. The Chinese are canny investors, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind giving the U.S. the middle finger on its sanctions. I doubt the (several) Chinese embassy meetings were of a social nature. My only question would be if the two parties they are in 'advanced discussions' with are both Chinese. Would the embassy trying gaming the auction if its two of its own bidding against each other? It might be difficult to game it very closely but they could set the the (bidding) ball park numbers.

He does look both enthusiastic, and frustrated, (at the absurd marcap) in equal measure. A 'new year' deal looks possible although that could be weeks into January, maybe February. Whatever, expectations have certainly be set on a deal being pretty close. I wonder how long it will be before the wider market figures our that there is at least a one bagger, maybe two, three, or possibly even more on today's closing price? And not that far away.

Any guesses as to the closing share price on Friday 29th December?

The consolidated balance sheet at June 30th stood at nearly £43m vs. £30.5m marcap today, so we need 40%+ increase in the SP just to reach book value. In other words circa 22.5p to reflect the costs of getting to where we are (I'm ignoring any very recent changes to shares in issue for this back of the envelope stuff).

Neither reference is particularly useful when trying to work out what the exit price will be, but they do give you a sense of context. The only really useful reference is the projected NPV which, as has already been pointed out, has a pretty strong correlation to PoG. Which happens to be on an upswing at the moment and seems to be happy settling above $2000.

I haven't attempted a new NPV calculation but it should be well north of $425m. Let's be conservative and say $500m. Now I'm a buyer, am I going to embarrass myself by slotting in an offer below book value? Even the bare faced low ballers are unlikely to attempt that. However, I'm probably going to want a minimum of 50% discount to NPV, and some. For me the playing ground will be between $100m and $250m. I doubt we'll get $250m just as much as I doubt JM will accept anything around or less that $100m. However, I look at it I still keep coming back to somewhere around $150m, say £120m, or somewhere between 50p and 65p based on what your assumptions are about fully diluted and FX on any one day. A month ago, on one of my more pessimistic days, I was thinking 35p - 45p, although the news of two active bidders increases the chances of something closer to the 60-65p marker I thought we might get a year ago.

As ever we remain in a world of guesswork and speculation. Nonetheless, today's RNS has reintroduced a bit more optimism about the outcome, and knocked for six the people who seem to think that an AIM, small volume share price, sets the reference point for a valuation. In a FTSE 100, high volume trading environment, it certainly remains of key importance. But this is AIM, and Condor is a speculative, almost illiquid, junior explorer/developer, which lurches from one cash raise to the next, and from one RNS to the next. And MMs are more than happy to knock a penny off to trade 300k shares - it's their job.

The warrants exercise is also a strong message to bidders that if they think they can wait out until Condor runs out of money, JM still has pretty deep pockets. I reckon he doesn't want to own all of Condor but still wants a pretty solid return on the time and money he has already put in. I just can't see him settling for less than a 100% return, and probably more. Double your 22.5p (to reflect sunk investment cost) gets you to 45p, add a bit more and you start moving into my exit price zone expectation. I bout 200% is on the cards but you never know.

I'm just sharing thoughts. I've no more idea than anyone else what the final SP equivalent outcome will be. But I still remain a bit more positive than negative. Why else would I still be in it?

There's a big difference between a dozen years ago and today. U.S. debt stood at almost a third of the $34 trillion it stands at today. And it's rapidly heading for $36 trillion. We are also in a world where many of its central banks are buying gold, so a suppression scheme will be a lot harder to pull off when they want the physical stuff. I doubt China will take IOUs in today's world.

It's a fools errand to try and nail a price for 2024 but it does feel like a run up is well overdue. Whether it's a $100 or a $1000 remains to be seen, but in the current environment either looks possible.

I kind of think that this is probably the only catalyst that will spark some excitement in the sector, and in Condor. So we are in agreement there. In the meantime we are stuck with watching our market makers shift the price down a penny to move half a dozen shares.

After a year of trying to flog the assets I'm throwing in the towel on my 60-65p target price. That was based on quite a lot of research into average prices paid for gold explorers over a number of years. However, the reality is that the market seems reluctant to pay average prices, and is quite clearly ignoring the NPV valuation, and the fact that gold looks like it might firm up with a $2000 support over the next few days (jury is still out but it's been a long time coming).

Condor's market price is obviously meaningless so it's not really a useful starting point. It doesn't even reflect book value which I estimate around 25p. All we have is guesswork and psychology. I would guess that the BoD would want at least a 100% return on book value, say 50p. Anything less would be unlikely to be taken seriously. And yet a buyer looking at Condor probably thinks they can sit it out while the money runs dry. They will know that book value is a likely floor so it's case of what premium to that they can get away with. A 50 -60% premium gets us to about 40p on, say 200m diluted. Assume 200m at 50p would yield about £100m. My guess is that the Bod would want to see £100m+ for both credibility and value reasons. £100m translates into about $125m. The lower end of the range, at circa 40p, we are talking £80m or $100m which looks a little too low for me, but then again reality is reality.

I'll be horrified if this goes for around $100m after 13+ years and a gold price that would see several tens of millions added to the last NPV calculation, but we may have to face facts. Our bidders just don't want to pay fair value, and we don't seem to have a plan b.

Nonetheless, at 14p it's a strong buy even with a bit more dilution waiting in the wings.

What do other people think of an exit price after a year of this?

Is is a ME company, or one that just has major operations in the ME?

My guess is that on both a credibility and valuation basis JM will see $100m as a starting point for viable bids rather than an end point. A 75% discount to known NPV is pretty aggressive. I would have thought he wants something north of that, albeit $150m is looking like a stretch at the moment. My valuations suggested about 60p share equivalent although I now sense that even 50p is starting to look like a stretch. Gut feeling of course, but the longer this drags on the more it feels like a lower price than a higher one, however strident JM is on an exit number.

At the moment I reckon 25p is the about balance sheet valuation. The current market price of 16p makes little sense other than through the prism of 'we are here to make a market'. Then again, my 60p price based on market averages seems to be irrelevant. Something is stopping buyers putting in a fair bid, and I can only think that they think Condor will not survive. Why bid a fair price if you think the company will go under? JM's assurance that he will keep supporting the company until the end of the process might actually influence bidders, but who knows?

It is looking tight to getting something nailed down before Christmas. Artificial deadlines can sometimes focus minds on delivering something. Whether it will do so in this case is anyone's guess. History suggests not, but there's always a first time. As things are I'm pretty much expecting to be wishing you all a 'Happy and prosperous 2024' on December 31st...

This 'taking it private' is yet another rabbit hole that Slim seems to want everyone to jump in to.

Very funny, Slim. I can see you p..sing your sides at your keyboard as one or two people take it seriously.

There is no evidence he is interested in taking 100% and plenty suggesting he is now ready for an exit.

However things look (with the MMs dropping the SP) the market is very very tight. I suspect I'm not the only one interested at 15p - 16p, especially when even a low bid will come in at least double, possibly triple that. My guess is that many people think like me that JM's price is probably about the floor at this point in time. Another fund raising and it could drop, but there are a lot of ifs and buts on the way to a lower market price.

It's a difficult call if you already have a lump in Condor, but 15 - 16p really is a giveaway price. Risky, yes, but a lot less risky that 30, 40 or 50p.

It will only let me buy 5k.