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Yeah, I was checking that out myself. Get Condor's mine up and running just before their current resource runs out. Makes sense. Although there is a great deal we don't know, I'm suprised that a £100M MCap London-listed company is willing or able to out-bid the Chinese. Interesting times.

Greetings from Condor Gold!

Just making you all aware of this article, and wondering if anyone has any comment, or further info to back it up?

https://news.sky.com/story/candy-backed-metals-exploration-swoops-on-condor-gold-13264464

RNS tomorrow? Gonna have to confirm or deny, surely?

Https://news.sky.com/story/candy-backed-metals-exploration-swoops-on-condor-gold-13264464

Some context - book5 and the ADVFN board generally are obsessed with the remaining 0.4% of the land we don't apparently own. MC has repeatedly said it's not an issue (he has also said that we own all the land - the situation admittedly is not as crystal clear as it could be). The co-op is a co-operative group of artisanal miners, to whom, the remaining unpurchased land belongs to, as far as I can tell. I would expect that they would like to continue working their mines for as long as possible (I imagine the amount they're getting out is negligible, compared to the total resource), and that MC has effectively given them leave to do so (my interpretation). In the event that the co-op would refuse to sell, then a compulsary purchase order (CPO) could be made to force them to sell up. I think CNR would have to apply to a court for that, and the court would grant it if the president (with whom, MC has taken tea at least once) told them to.

All a massive fuss about nothing IMHO, but DYOR. I'm sure the ADVFN folks would give you their opinions, if you asked them!

Pros care little about averages. Obviously, they like to buy as low as possible, but after that it's a sunk cost, a relic of the past. What he will want is value. So he'll be more interested in NPVs, payback periods, total profit over the life of mine, things like that, than merely what his average is.

Apologies for the OT, but just browsing around today and read this: "warren buffet just bought 1b of Mstr"

Which suprised me, to put it mildly, as it would suprise anyone who has any familiarity with his usual MO, and that of his late business partner Charlie Munger. Suffice to say, I don't belive this to be true. DYOR.

The SP is up, strongly. That's the real story. So no way that was a sell IMHO, unless there's greater buying pressure from elsewhere to counter it. More likely that was the trade, along with a handful of smaller ones, that sucked up the buy-side liquidity, provoking the rise.

If it looked like a sell, you'd be bleating about it though wouldn't you?

Yeah, it's a long-standing issue and the source of many an MM conspiracy theory! The reality is that, as far as I know, the stock exchange doesn't actually publish whether a trade is a buy or a sell - only the trade price and quantity. This site, and others, try to guess which it is based on the trade price and their idea of the spread at the time (which itself is not an exact science, as each MM will have their own buy and sell prices). Thus, many, if not most, of the guesses are incorrect. Personally, I wish they wouldn't bother trying, unless they can up the accuracy significantly. Long story short, basically ignore the buy/sell indicators - they're far too unreliable to be useful and are frequently misleading.

Bit harsh honestly. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. Plus, I wouldn't tell people what my trades were going to be ahead of time, so wouldn't expect others to do so either.

Well first of all, it has already been protracted! It's been 2 years since the BoD announced their intention to sell.

With regards to the cash burn - not easy to tell. As far as we know, the company is, as you would expect, keeping costs to a minimum. Their are no significant ongoing activities that we are aware of apart from the sale process itself. That said, the board tends to keep their cards close to their chests, so we mushrooms have to read between the lines as well as we can.

We can't know for sure, but that is a reasonable assumption yes. Given the short timeframes mentioned in the RNS, it could be all done and dusted by Christmas, although paperwork, official shareholder approval and getting the actual cash out may well take a bit longer. All to play for though IMHO, especially at the current SP. I'd be buying if I didn't already have plenty!

Indeed. A really basic calculation indicate that 150k oz a year at roughly $1000/oz AISC and today's gold price of $2560/oz gives $234m profit per annum vs current MCap of $52m. Of course the mine needs to be paid for and built first, and there's other costs as well, but still, it's not hard to come up with some pretty punchy numbers.

In a sale, we'd only get a fraction of the total value over the life of the mine of course, but the BoD has concluded that we can't afford to build it basically, hence the sale.

One can justify a wide range of possible valuations. Don't think I've seen that particular one, but I imagine it will be based on the largest of the 3 feasibility study scenarios - open pit and underground production from the main La India vein, plus contributions from additional smaller feeder pits, totaling around 150k ozs a year, from memory.

It has to be said though that broker estimates are notoriously unreliable as a guide to future SP performance. I wouldn't be suprised to find that SP Angel has had something near a quid for us for years.

Unecessary language Bear. Manners cost nothing.

No need to exacerbate the situation by bringing it over here though.

Don't think I have much to say regarding the article, except that it implies that Calibre is the only potential acquirer, but I have never believed that to be the case. Calibre have diversified into less controversial jurisdictions and buying Condor, while it may make financial sense, may simply be too many eggs in the same basket for them. On the other hand, the Chinese were always an option, and I believe an un-named middle-eastern company is, or was, also kicking the tires. By all accounts interest has picked up, largely due to the gold price rise, heralding a potential bull-market in gold equities. As cf says, we may finally be in the position than LTHs have been dreaming of for years - multiple interested parties competing for our assets, with the background of a gold price few if any on here thought possible when the company was first put on the market 2 years ago.

Agreed with the thread title change. While Seingred and I have our differences, the events on here earlier had the flavour of a witch hunt, which is not something I can get behind.

Also agree that the RNS suggests the end is near. Hard to know how much cash we've got left, but if we were likely to be looking at another 6+ months, they'd have borrowed more than a few hundred K.

The mill sale is a bit of a wild card, not too sure what to make of that really, but probably not hugely significant. While the mill and the rest of the company may go in different directions, I'd still expect both to happen soon. I mean, how much longer can it possibly take?!

Price is a trade-off between what someone will pay and what JM will accept. But the gold price has worked out for us, which may have been JM's plan all along - he's been bullish on gold for some time, so our NPVs are big numbers compared to the current SP.

Really tough for me to imagine that JM will settle for under 60p, whereas a buyer will still be getting loads of profit over the life of the mine at that price, or even substantially higher, so I see the buyer having to increase their price to something JM will accept, as opposed to JM having to take whatever crumbs are being offered. After all, he's had 2 years to do that, and he hasn't so far. More likely he'll just wait longer than sell out at a low price IMO, but I could be wrong. DYOR, as always.

Indeed. Some of us think Seingred is rather conservative, but even if he's bang on the money, it's still a pretty good return from here. I'm certainly a bit envious that newbies can buy in now, at this price, when LTHs have suffered for years! Them's the breaks though. Good luck either way.

Probably better than issuing new equity (which as others, have pointed out, JM may not be able to partake in, as he's near max holding before being forced to take us over himself). As for the interest rate, well he's not a charity. In any case, it's quite a small amount and fingers crossed, we'll only need it for a couple of months.