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Indeed, it is difficult to reconcile Erik's bullishness during the year (as well as doubling Singida production and a super-pit ideas) and his support of the TO offer. A conspiracy theorist in me suggests maybe it is not as straightforward as it looks. Either Erik's hands were twisted last moment, or else. What else? It could be a multi-step plan, with a low ball offer coming first, and a more attractive offer(s) (not necessarily from ETC Holdings) later.

Whatever is behind the curtain, I maxed out my Shanta holding. And I'll buy more below 13.0. At the moment, this is an amazing opportunity with zero risk.

Thanks Tony. I think the realisation will gradually set in that 75% vote for 13.5p will not be happening. The resentment will grow, amplified by (likely) decisive break-through of the gold price through the all time high in the traditional January rally. And then I can easily see the stock price breaking through 13.5p. If any entity tries to short it, it would be to their ruin.

And yes, we must force the management to publish drill and Q4 results before the vote.

No one will vote "YES" if gold is above 2100 at the time of voting, and we have all the craziness of 2020 again. As I explained earlier, Shanta is an ideal investment with 13.65p price floor and unlimited upside. Do your thinking, people.

Effectively, one has no upside limit, and a floor at 13.65. I will go all-in with my LSE allocation, once I see a good opportunity to liquidate my other holdings, provided I can still get it at 13.0.

The higher the price of gold, the more probable for the good bids to arrive. It is highly improbable to lose in this game:

1) If the gold price goes lower, you get 13.65p.

2) If the gold price goes higher, you get better bids, or you get immediate stock appreciation after the "NO" vote.

The only scenario when you lose is higher gold price, no other bids, and 75% "YES" vote. Extremely unlikely. Would anyone vote "YES" if gold is at 2300?

Our first major request is for a timeline that is sufficient to receive evidence of price discovery. >> Tony, is there a way to extend the timeline?

You can destroy your reputation only once. :)

Don't worry, guys. We have all the trump cards. It is our company, and we will make them pay if they want it. :)

Around 7% of SHG shares were traded yesterday. I am pretty sure at least half of them will vote against the 13.5p offer. Big players and M&A arb guys see the opportunity to have a free lunch of 13 -> 13.65 arb and, ideally, squeeze ETC Holdings into a higher offer.

I think ETC Holdings realise they will not get 75% votes with a 13.5 offer. Then why did they come with the offer so low? I think it is all about psychology. The human brain is wired to compare. If you come up with a 13.5p, and then raise it to, say, 16p, then it would look as attractive as offering 25p from the start. I think those who are selling now are making a grave mistake. Of course, there are gambling opportunities in other stocks. But here we have 13.65 floor in two months, with a highly probable upside option, for free.

"Gold miners" can be roughly divided into 3 categories: explorers, developers and producers. I guess 1755 looked at the first two categories. Only producers are making money. Of course, it can be a mixed bag. For example, Shanta is a producer for NL and Singida, and explorer for WK.

Second point is that one should be careful with AISC extrapolations. For example, if HUM management screws up, as they usually do, their AISC for Q4 could be north of 2000. That's probably a reason they did 30% dilution a couple of days ago. :) CIG will now have 43% of HUM, so they are primed for a hostile takeover. Risk is everything.

Don't forget that both CEY and HUM are now hedging their gold production (not sure about the others from the list), so they would not participate in any possible upside in the gold price. Shanta is not hedging.

Toptiger, sorry, I cannot share the names, as I am still accumulating. One problem is these stocks are quite illiquid now, most being under 200M market cap. It takes a lot of time to get a decent exposure if you don't want to cross insane spread. At this point, SHG is my largest position, and it will probably stay like that for some time.

For example, once the gold mining sector valuations normalise, every gold ounce in the ground would cost 100$ or higher. Only WK, with 3M Oz reserves, would cost +300M, i.e. double of current Shanta capitalization. +140k Oz production with Singida and NL reserves would come for free,

Current undervaluation is not only about Shanta. I am looking at many gold/silver producers in the US, Canada, Australia, and it is amazing how undervalued they are now. Gold mining sector has probably never been cheaper relative to the value. This is a typical vicious cycle:

Value Lower --> Portfolio Managers are fired and liquidated, retail investors run --> Prices lower.

The tide is turning now. Once gold starts testing the 2100 - 2500 range, I expect a lot of madness on the contrary. PMs will get hired back, new allocations will be given, the most undervalued stocks, like Shanta, will quickly re-rate. We don't even need any news stream from Shanta for re-rate. Anything on top, like drilling results, Singida expansion, WK progress, etc., coinciding with the upward gold move, will produce an overshoot in value.

Daisan, I totally agree. Shanta is a super convenient company to wait through short-term gold volatility until there is a financial accident or debt/budget crisis. It is much less comfortable to be in junior explorers/developers or miners with high debt right now. Some of them will get diluted to zero or go belly up trying to refinance or do placings, before the gold price goes parabolic. Shanta will get through fine, and it has a high margin of safety in the current price.

Gold price is not about a narrative now. It is about volatility, supply/demand fluctuations, and competition from high real interest rate products. Gold will shine only after something breaks. I traded gold in 2008-2011. At that time, the feeling was that whatever happens - gold always goes up. It was a no-brainer. We will see these times again. We would not be able to post here, though. The board will be flooded by hoards of new investors who know nothing about mining and do not care to learn anything.

Sure, I forgot to add "relatively overpriced". Gold mining sector is at historic lows relative to the value. Plus negative premium for LSE listing. I think CEY will likely double in price in this cycle (once the Fed starts cutting rates). However, SHG can easily triple or quadruple, and still not be overpriced. Hopefully, there will be no takeover.

I looked at Q3 Centamin’s presentation today. At Sukari, CEY plans to produce around 500k Oz starting from 2024 with 11 years LOM. YTD AISC 1386. 990M market cap, debt free.

Shanta market cap is 114M, around 1:9 to CEY. 100+kOz current rate of production, with adding a second ball mill increasing production to 130kOz in 2025. YTD Group AISC is 1160, i.e. lower than CEY. Even without prod increase at Sinigda, CEY produces less than 5 times more than SHG. The only substantial drawback for SHG in this comparison is the life of mine. Once Shanta LOM increased to 7-11 years, CEY would be at least 9:5 overpriced (or even more if you take AISC into account).

One thing I didn’t like is CEY buys gold puts at $1900 to hedge. This would be nice if gold price drops below 1900, but adds a huge unnecessary cost if gold goes up. Puts are expensive.

I am overweight SHG and underweight CEY atm.

Adding a few years to New Luika mine life seems to be a top priority. 5 years official mine life is what keeps the company unfairly underpriced in people's spreadsheets.

RAB seems to be In liquidation mode https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7102906171224645632/