Member Info for esduk

Yep, props to Bonker for making the right call. Unfortunately the missus vetoed me remortgaging the house to pile in :D. Tbh I thought we would have had some form of news by now, which is why I thought 14's was unlikely. After a good run of news and comms Mkango and Cotec have both been pretty quiet in the last couple of months (usually the opposite for Julian) despite all of the things that are going on in the background.

There has clearly been a seller in the background, which for a long time was matched by a buyer. But as mentioned a while back, the market is clearly now looking for substantial news to take this back up and past 20. I have been topping up extensively in the 15s and think that patience will be rewarded. Let's see.

Yeh, saw Will re-post that on LinkedIn earlier today. Wasn't sure whether it related to the short loop HPMS facility or the new long loop process we are developing through Mkango RE UK (a wholly owned subsidiary of Mkango), given it's reference to a pilot plant and chemical processing. The latest company presentation from April talks about a Mkango RE UK long loop pilot plant being commissioned (it uses the present tense). Either way, encouraging news that they are hiring and clearly confident.

Thanks Codejunkie, appreciate you going to the trouble of providing that info. IG clearly a better platform for showing the true bid and ask positions.

What platform are you using Codejunkie? On L2 it’s 5 MM’s on the bid at 15 vs 3 on the ask at 16. Based on that I don’t understand the comment about bidding being really weak and in the 14s, and shed loads of MM’s on the ask, unless you have access to a different platform??

Yes, little volume, but that hasn’t stopped them dropping the bid despite buying volume outweighing sells. The MM’s never miss an opportunity…

Big buyer back again today after taking a break yesterday. I know there is some frustration with the SP action recently, but this is a good bulletin board, without any of the agro you get on other shares, so hoping it stays that way.

Big buyer still collecting in the background at these levels.

I've seen Julian talk about this topic in one of his investor Q&A sessions, though he wasn't particularly clear, and I haven't seen any details written down anywhere. I've made some assumptions myself around how it may work, but would be good to have this confirmed by the company in due course. One thing is clear, we don't need to raise any money at Mkango in order to keep our c.40% stake (through 79.4% Maginito stake), so no fundraising needed on our side.

I assume that any grant funding just directly reduces the financing requirement and the benefit of this is therefore shared between Cotec and Mkango. Any devex costs (such as the FEED study) that Cotec have funded themselves will need to be repaid, as is completely normal before equity starts getting paid out. Any debt financing will be senior to equity holders, and debt service will need to be covered before distributions to equity are made.

Beyond that, I am not clear on how distributions will be structured between Mkango and Cotec, or more accurately between Maginitio and Cotec (noting Cotec also own 20.6% of Maginito). I am pretty certain though, that we can't be diluted from our c.40% position in Hypromag USA. It may be that any cash equity that Cotec put into financing the project is structured as subordinated debt (a form of shareholder investment used in project finance), which is serviced before wider equity distributions (dividends) are paid to the parent(s) i.e. Cotec and Maginito.

Thanks Bonker, this looks to be good news for us, confirming that the Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study is going ahead imminently. Of course, the beauty of this for Mkango is that the development of the project is to be funded by Cotec rather than Mkango, so we're along for a free ride!

I understand your anxiousness to some extent silvermaple and have commented a fair bit over the past few weeks on the sometimes fishy looking SP action in this 15-20p range myself. We seem to have had a reasonably large seller (whether or not trying to manipulate the price I don't know) and a reasonably large buyer during this period, with MM's having control of the price and often not seeming to run a balanced book. The good news so far is that when the MM's have tried to drop the SP on little volume there has been strong buying in the 15's/16p. Something could be up in the background, though may also be nothing untoward.

At the same time, I would say that a consolidation after the sustained rise we had to 20p, where we were in an overbought position, is healthy and pretty natural given that we haven't yet got the news we are waiting for and the trade war rhetoric has dampened down a bit. For the next leg up above 20p it seems the market wants to see the start of commercial operations at Tyseley or the business combination agreement announcement with associated valuation of Lancaster assets (Songwe and Pulawy).

Of course, these are just the two bits of news that we have a reasonably certain timetable for. We could also receive news at any time on Hypromag USA funding, offtake and supply agreements for our various projects, Songwe receiving CRMA Strategic Project status, announcement of Japanese, Canadian or Indian recycling projects etc. So, I'm remaining calm and taking any opportunities to top-up in the 15's/16p. We know the value here and it's now just a case of waiting patiently.

Thanks biffa

Hi biffa, have you got a link? Or is it just this article from University of Birmingham a couple of hours ago that you're referring to?

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/pioneering-recycling-of-rare-earth-magnets-provides-uk-based-materials-source

Pioneering recycling of rare earth magnets provides UK-based materials source

Professor Allan Walton highlights exciting expertise that will help the UK technology industry secure vital supplies of rare earth materials

19 May 2025

“The University of Birmingham has pioneered the use of hydrogen to separate and recycle rare earth magnets at a fraction of the cost and environmental impact compared to primary production of magnets.

“The University has licensed this technology to Hypromag Ltd and is nearing completion of a recycling facility at Tyseley Energy Park (Birmingham) where end-of-life components arrive at the facility and the output will be new recycled rare earth magnets at different grades.

“This will provide an indigenous source of rare earths to the whole UK supply chain - reintroducing magnet manufacturing back into the UK for the first time in over 20 years and placing the West Midlands at forefront of this critical field.”

Some big trades today, in both directions. Newsflow can't be far off now.

More shenanigans from the MM's (Marex in this case) on the way into close, drop the bid and ask substantially for no reason... Anyway, still a good day.

No doubt, they were looking for shares and they didn’t get many.

We seem to have been let go by the MM's...

I would add to that that he says it hasn't yet been picked up by most of the funds or any of the indexes, so he agrees with the thesis that it will do very well from institutional and index buying upon ASX listing. He also talks about the Price to FCF multiple being the best out there.

Final thing I'd say Toplocks, is that I assume that there were eligibility criteria for applying for CRMA Strategic Project status. If we know (from the CEO of Hareena) that they have applied for this status for an African RE project, then I think we can pretty safely assume that African RE projects must fit within the eligibility criteria that the EC has set i.e. you must be able to apply even if you aren't an EU affiliate.

Agree Gallmat. Let's look at an example of our competition. Hareena Resources has applied for this status. It has is far behind us (no DFS, no MDA, no ESHIA) in terms of being nearly construction ready and has no actual ties to the EU (that I can see). It's market cap is a few $m.

If you are comparing us to other RE applicants in Africa, we must come out on top. Ready to go into construction within a year (after FEED and then FID), secures supply of RE carbonate to Pulawy, has EIT investment and is already using EIT funds on the project, has a management team that you trust and have spoken on many of your panels.

The main risk as I see it is whether or not they decide to give this status to any African RE projects. But if they choose to then surely it's a no brainer to give it to us.

Yes I definitely wouldn't say we are nailed on for Songwe to receive this status, but a month ago no-one was even talking about it even being a possibility for Songwe to receive this status. The fact that Europe needs a secure a RE magnet supply chain is likely to mean that they need to consider projects located in friendly countries outside of the EU and EU affiliates. From an EU perspective, it isn't much use getting Pulawy built if there isn't a secure supply of mixed Rare Earth carbonate to feed into it. When the DFS was announced, we had commercial and development banks visiting the Songwe site and apparently showing lots of interest. I expect that post SPAC listing, with or without CRMA status, we will be able to get debt financing for the project, but CRMA status will make it easier and potentially lower cost finance.

Decent buying again today, with no reaction in SP as yet.