Member Info for DowntoEarth

I thought his body language in the interview made the whole situation worse. He didn’t look like someone who’s in control.

Personally, I wouldn't consider buying any shares until there's clarity on any proposed cash raise.

I suppose it's possible AE never had any intention of making a material investment in KSK. The whole charade could have been to acquire nearly 400 million shares at an all time low SP of 0.9p each - genius!!

And you're not interested? (take note of the correct use of 'you're' instead of 'your')

'How would that work if they've already sold those shares? I highly doubt the AE shares are null and void.'

From the RNS is March:

'The Company has successfully placed 373,399,456 Placing Shares, raising proceeds of approximately £3,360,595 million (US$3,898,290)
The Placing is conditional upon, inter alia, Admission of the Placing Shares to trading (which will be issued and settled in CREST to the extent possible) on AIM. Application will be made for Admission, which is expected to occur by 8.00 a.m. on 30 March 2020 ("Admission").
Following Admission, the Company's issued ordinary share capital will comprise 1,474,267,533 common shares. From Admission, the figure of 1,474,267,533 may be used by Shareholders in the Company as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

No mention of it being conditional on SPA, the only condition is that the admission of placing share to trading.

As far as I can tell, it sounds to me that Manini is talking out of his arris.

'The best way to get good at equity investing is to lose money.....as there is nothing better than losing money for concentrating the mind, sharpening the judgement and improving the research.'

Sound advice. When I first started investing I had the misfortune of having some good luck, which subsequently clouded my investment decisions and I eventually lost a packet. I'll be damned if I let that happen again.

'apparently there holding are null and void if deal didn't go through'
If that's the case then ARS should amend the total number of shares issued, forthwith.

My prediction is this will drift down to around 2p over the next couple of weeks, then the inevitable cash raise at a discount to pay the big fat salaries, call it 1.5p and then the usual drift down below the cash raise price. This is heading for 1.2p

If they care about the shareholders register maybe they sold at +5p and will buy the same amount back in around 1p. After all they are the only ones who know their own intentions. Maybe this whole SPA was a scam by AE to push the SP up with the inevitable falling off the cliff once they were kicked off. Manini has really been taken for a ride here and he should fall on his sword, this is 12 months and 20% of the company down the drain.

'to be fair they found $3m at 0.9p when they wanted to...'

Which was worth $20m 9 months later and still worth over $10m today - they couldn't lose!

If receiving $2.5m is a challenge at this stage of the honeymoon period, do you not worry about the remaining $7.5m or even the final $40m once PT WIN complete their IPO? Assuming that the IPO will actually go ahead.
Also, AE are clearly well connected in a notoriously corrupt Indonesia, do you not worry that these connections could be used against ARS to limit their options of finding an alternative partner? I think ARS are clearly over a barrel here and the terms of agreement are being amended to suit AE and there's very little ARS can do about it.

I wouldn't say it's 'anyone's guess' whether £16m is too much or too little
" provision totalling £15.8m based on the Directors' best estimate of the total costs of a customer redress programme being developed at the request of the FCA"
Clearly there's on going dialogue between the FCA and NSF, hence why they've estimated to the nearest £100k

Since the last cash raise, it's taken 12 months of negotiations with AE to get to this point and without the forthcoming cash from AE, ARS will be desperately short of money. Sounds to me like AE are trying to put ARS over a barrel for more favourable terms to suit them. If ARS don't agree to AE's terms, then what? another cash raise at 1p with some other dodgy bunch? Didn't feel comfortable with this AE partnership as soon as we heard about them being being implicated in dubious oil dealings in Singapore.

I actually thought the update was OK, slow (very) but still some progress. If it gets much lower I'll be buying some more.

I agree bigsmoke, it could be said that it's nice problem to have. A far worse scenario would be if the subprime market was shrinking.

https://southerntimesafrica.com/site/news/bots-reopens-borders-to-international-travellers

Leave it Brad, you're trying to start a debate with an idiot.

"Since the end of June 2020, lending volumes have recovered strongly such that the net loan book returned to growth in August and September 2020. At an average of 89% of pre-COVID levels since the end of June, collections have also been better than expected. Whilst further lockdowns and the prospect of a second wave of infection remain current challenges, the proportion of customers that remain COVID-flagged has fallen significantly from the peak in June 2020 with the result that rates of delinquency have also reduced and whilst not quite back at pre-pandemic levels, the trend is encouraging."

Without knowing the terms on offer it's very difficult to speculate whether we would be better off opting for alternative private financing away from BDC. As BDC are basically the Bot's government, I would speculate that project financing provided by them will involve less dilution, interest will be lower, possibly repayments deferred/delayed and that's why the BOD continue down this avenue.

In some ways I agree. If the RNS was only about the minister's visit, the market could have interpreted the visit as the last bit of red tape to clear before BDC finance being rubber stamped. That scenario might still be the case.
Clearly the BOD see greater long term value for the company in having BDC on board and that's why they are being so patient with them, but at some point there has to be a line in sand when the company moves on and secures finance elsewhere.