Member Info for extrader

His taxi this time, for any anoraks amongst you, is another Dassault Falcon 9H-GLX.

Its listed as privately-owned and its recent flight history includes Tel Aviv, Yerevan and Georgia...so likely to be 'just'a charter for Big Den, unless he's looking to expand (still further) his globe-trotting diplomacy efforts.

GLA

Today's depeches editorial refers to Big Den's recent National Day address, where (amongst other things), he lamented the obstructionist attitude shown by some re land expropriation/compensation, which has delayed/frustrated progress on SEZ's and other 'National projects', whose status should give them a supposed cut-through Ed.: cf 'eminent domain']

ZIOC is such a 'National Project, also designated as of 'public utility' ("DUP").

The editorial says :

.."on the recurring debate on land legislation, we have [Big Den] said, to distinguish ordinary land from land that is the (p)reserve of the State.

For decades, endless palaver and opposition by landowners have been obstacles to the implementation of a number of projects designed to create wealth and try to find new

ways of addressing the vital question of youth unemployment. The enormous financial resources that we have to mobilise to compensate the land chiefs, and/or

the illegal occupation of the public domain make an obstacle which, very often, forces the

public authorities to postpone the execution of these projects ...or even abandon them.

In making this intervention, the President of the Republic expects the members of the government to translate into action the words he addressed to the nation.

It will be up to them, in due course, to explain to their compatriots, who've also heard the

presidential instructions : what has been done; what has not been done; and why ?

This is called, in other words, results-based management..."

'Make it so'.

ATB

Predictably, Big Den's reception by Macron and Trump (and the Archbishop of Paris), features prominently in depeches and on the Presidential twitter feed...

..which also tells us that our man - pausing only for a change of suit and taxi - is now in Libya for high level talks to resolve the (latest) crisis there, in his capacity as President of the African Union Libya committee.

Busy, busy, busy.

Ho hum.

Big Den's reception by Macron and Trump (and the Archbishop of Paris), features prominently in depeches and on the Presidential twitter feed...

..which also tells us that our man - pausing only for a change of suit and taxi - is now in Libya for high level talks to resolve the (latest) crisis there, in his capacity as President of the African Union Libya committee

Ho hum.

In other news, I don't know whether this counts as 'substantive' but in the Notre Dame re-opening photo-opps, Big Den and Mrs are standing front and centre (with the Moroccan monarch in row 2 behind them); next to Big Den is Jill Biden, then Macron's wife, then Trump, then Macron.

Maybe it's just a protocol thing - gerontocracy or degeneracy ? - but mildly interesting nonetheless.

You'd never guess that the Nguesso clan have live legal cases in France against them for 'biens mal acquis' - literally 'ill-gotten gains'.....

Gives a whole second meaning to the phrase ' everything's relative', I suppose.

Ho hum.

PS I don't know whether this counts as 'substantive' but in the Notre Dame photo-opps, Big Den and Mrs are standing in front row (with the Moroccan monarch behind them); next to Big Den is Jill Biden, then Macron's wife, then Trump, then Macron.

Maybe it's just a protocol thing - gerontocracy or degeneracy ? - but mildly interesting nonetheless.

You'd never guess that the Nguesso clan have live legal cases in France against them for 'biens mal acquis' - literally 'ill-gotten gains'.....

Gives a whole second meaning to the phrase ' everything's relative', I suppose.

Ho hum.

GLA

Hi beardozer

As Benjamin Graham says "In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine".

ZIOC 'just' needs to put something substantive on the scales...

AIUI

Recent posts, last 14 Nov, were cautiously positive.

Tip: if you go to the top left 'little man in black ', there's a search function.

Thanks for the 'prompt' to seek ...and to lse for allowing me to 'find''

HTH and ATB

....and another 500k at 4.55 just b4 the close, it would seem.

Abergele for the knees-up if the bid's on the low side (no offence, Driving), Kurland if it's on the high side.

No harm asking Elphick for a 'mates rates ' discount given the unconscionable delay....

I' d even offer to proofread the website for free : there were a few places that need attention.

GLA

Thanks for pulling together the various strands MM.

MK as 'point' and Elphick if/when we get down to the short strokes will doubtless be making the same arguments, backed with a lot more detailed info - both re ZIOC specifically and 'insider info' re the real (as opposed to media-reported) industry dynamics.

The 'sausage' is already pretty meaty, they've been harping on about the 'sizzle' - the upside -from the outset: it is the first 'key strength' in the Admission Document (p 5).

(1) The greater the upside, the greater the risk of some party (or outsider) attempting a 're-allocation' in their favour. At the very least, the Strategics will certainly want to keep as much as possible for themselves...

(2) With the prospect of 'wealth beyond the dreams of avarice' (Elphick himself getting £1.2 billion on your last quoted NAV) and already booking a 'lost decade +' for him and his co-investors, I think the calculation cash plus 'other consideration' will have shifted to a shorter time horizon.

The Assad debacle is a timely reminder that 'stuff happens', especially likely if you live in a bad post-code.

I see 3 stages : (1) partial cash offer (2) some contingent share in upside (resource, not production) as carrot; (3) squeeze-out of minorities, so we don't share reward (or risk, tbf) of 30 + years' production.

Your 'phased buy-in' fortunately appears to have been anticipated ('phased buy-out') by Elphick and Co .

(1) as Jiving has pointed out :

Xstrata Offer P23 - ZIOC becoming an 'investing company' may refer to retaining royalties or other ongoing interest:

“.. following completion of [an] Xstrata Offer, seek Shareholder approval for an appropriate course of action, be that a winding up and return of capital to Shareholders or a conversion of status to an investing company..."

(2) I showed 27 Nov a successful North Sea oil co analogy - one payment for proven 'as is', with further payment(s) contingent on certain milestones re production * being achieved. See

World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd

https://worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/...

[PDF]Project Financing : How LASMO Rode the Waves and Struck …

* that was production, of course (a bonanza for investors, when the field took 30 years to run down ;->), it would be a lot shorter timeframe to upgrade /quantify the Resource upside.

(3) at the inflexion point of Resource redefinition - and distribution of whatever second payout was contingent thereon - we minorities would be squeezed out under the relevant clause, typically (p 321) once the controlling shareholders held 90% of the shares.

All good fun speculating, hopefully we ants get to find out ere too long what the elephants have in store for us.

GLA and ATB

PS From a gander at https://www.kurland.co.za/our-story/, the Elphick's aren't short of a bob or two already.

I think I may have also alluded to this at some time in the distant past.

As you say, it's been a long time.

ATB

.."Or did you make all the money you hoped to make when it listed? Something extrader alluded to many years ago which I didn't understand at the time.."

You're misremembering (as I was re the 0800 AGM start-time) : I didn't say that the mine promoters made a lot of money at time of listing, rather that they recouped most of their 'seed capital' investment.

I said this because .."During 2007, the Group was granted non-interest bearing loan facilities by Garbet and Guava which have accumulated to $21,027,000 at 31 December 2009 (2008: $12,009,000, 2007: $3,972,000).

The loans are unsecured and are repayable upon demand. On 15 October 2010 it was agreed that these loans would not be repayable until the earlier of (1) Xstrata exercising the Call Option (at which point Xstrata would provide sufficient funds for repayment)....etc.

p 299.

In the event, the loans were indeed settled at (1). Concurrent with the IPO , 'the Directors' placed the same number of shares and received their £ 31m.

I'm sure there will have been other costs not reflected in the books, so G + G are unlikely to have pocketed the headline £ 31m net. And G+G aren't just Howarth and Elphick (several early employees' LTIP entitlements (aggregate 4.5% shareholding) were 'tidied up' by being absorbed into Guava, p 336).

At MinorMiner's calculated current NPV, Elphick's PERSONAL stake is theoretically worth approx £ 1.2 billion.....I doubt even he had that number in mind when the caper started 15+ years ago.

HTH

Cheers, Mr M,

Re your rhetorical " How can you be taken seriously as a rating agency if you neglect $30 billion of legal exposure in an upgrade report?"

I think the rating agencies' reputations haven't yet recovered from their contribution to the GFC, as portrayed in 'The Big Short'....

ATB

.."Some ZIOC investors must be desperate if they're plane-spotting in the hope it means anything for their investment! .."

Well, the loan/availability of the Sheikh's taxi service (his personal 757) DID seem to have something to do with the signing of the AD Ports Concession......

OK, correlation is not causation, but aircraft movements are occasionally significant :

it was the Brazil > Congo flights programme ' Rota do Atlantico' that exposed the Asperbras /Brazil/Congo / Lula / Nguesso connection....

HTH

PS Weren't you the one who drew attention to the 0800 start of yesterday's AGM (which, for the avoidance of doubt, I think is a 'tell') ?

ATB

Hi Mr Marroc,

If - which seems increasingly likely - there's some kind of financial engineering /restructuring in the YPF case, any Wall Street investment bank involved* will

presumably be sitting across the table from BUR on this matter....so there's no incentive out there to make BUR's arguments for it. Au contraire, in fact...

* as in ' seeking a mandate'. It wouldn't help your chances of success if anyone were to have acknowledged, re international credibility/rule of law etc... ..'they've got a point, you know'...

Cynical, moi ?

ATB

Ref yesterday's Mr Marroc post, this just in from Seb

.."🛑Second media outlet/research firm that confirms ongoing negotiations between Argentina and GDP Warrants judgment creditors.

First was Argentina’s TN, now Octus (formerly Reorg).

Everything points to the execution of the EUR 313 million guarantee and the subsequent payment of some EUR 1.3 billion.

I haven’t been able to verify it in spite of my numerous calls to the government..."

ATB

Meanwhile, Biden's (belated) swan-song visit to Africa gets off to a bad start...

https://lesechos-congobrazza.com/faits-divers/10706-joe-biden-s-endort-pendant-un-sommet-avec-des-dirigeants-africains-l-image-des-usa-dans-la-farine-de-ble

Sleepy Joe literally dozes off ...

.."In the middle of the summit, he fell asleep in his chair. In images circulated on social networks, the 82-year-old president can be seen struggling not to fall asleep, but the six-hour time difference, his four years in office and the recent presidential campaign have taken their toll on his energy.

Joe Biden was then participating in a roundtable with African leaders to discuss the Lobito Corridor infrastructure project, which could transport minerals by rail .."

Not a good look for the US ;-< !

GLA

And this is the what and the why...

https://lesechos-congobrazza.com/politique/10704-congo-france-denis-sassou-n-guesso-present-a-la-reouverture-de-notre-dame-de-paris

.."the official reopening service of Notre-Dame, presided over by the Archbishop of Paris, Mgr Laurent Ulrich, will take place in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron and some fifty heads of state and government, including Congolese President Denis Sassou N'Guesso, Donald Trump [??!!], Ursula von der Leyen, Albert of Monaco, among many others, as well as in front of officials, patrons and representatives of all the parishes of Paris.

When we do a generous act, God the Most Merciful is a witness, according to the Holy Scriptures.

Denis Sassou-N'Guesso, who lives his Christian faith well, is the first President of Congo to offer a great Church to his people.

He has built a large church in Oyo, in the department of Cuvette (north), with a capacity of 800 seats. An act perceived by Christians as the greatest gift offered by the Congolese number one to the Catholic Church in 2019.

This Church was officially handed over to the authorities of the Congolese Catholic Church on March 14, 2019, during the commemoration of the death of the former first lady of Gabon, Edith Lucie Bongo Ondimba.

[Edith was Big Den's daughter, so he was father-in-law to the previous Head of Gabon, ousted a while back in a palace coup ].

The other curiosity is that - while being recognised here as a good Catholic, Big Den is also a Grand Fromage in the Freemasons....

https://www.africaintelligence.com/west-africa/2021/07/30/sassou-set-to-mediate-in-freemason-crisis,109683279-art

.."Congo, Ivory Coast

Sassou set to mediate *in Freemason crisis

The succession tussle at the Grande Loge de Côte d'Ivoire (GLCI) is continuing to divide the country's Freemasons. The Congolese president, who is influential in this milieu, is gearing up to mediate in the coming days...."

* add this to the list a few days ago of Big Den's diplomatic skills...

And this despite that the two beliefs are supposedly incompatible :

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256045/explainer-why-can-t-a-catholic-join-the-freemasons

Maybe Big Den will use the Paris opportunity to add Trump to his Rolodex?

GLA

He's left this behind for someone else to handle :

https://lesechos-congobrazza.com/economie/10698-congo-la-centrale-hydroelectrique-d-imboulou-sur-le-point-de-s-ecrouler-quel-gachis

Congo: The Imboulou hydroelectric power station on the verge of collapse, what a waste

The technical report of the director of the China Machinery Engineering Corporation Congo (CEMEC) to the general manager of E2C on December 4, 2024, on the critical degradations at the Imboulou hydroelectric power plant, gives chills and vertigo.

"We observed a localized collapse of the concrete floor in front of the plant..not an isolated incident.... similar problems have been identified near the switching station, on the downstream section of the tailrace, and at several other strategic locations. This degradation seems to be mainly caused by water infiltration from the reservoir. It is important to specify that for earthen dams such as the one in Imboulou, this type of problem is actually one of the most frequently encountered disorders and does not, in itself, present any major complexity to be solved," according to the report by the company CEMEC Congo.....

As part of our initial technical assistance contract, we initially assigned a civil engineer to the site, responsible for the day-to-day monitoring of the dam's buildings and structures. His role was to prevent, detect and quickly resolve potential problems. During this period of continuous supervision, no significant incidents were recorded. Unfortunately, FOR BUDGETARY REASONS, you have decided to abolish this civil engineer position in the new contract, leaving your company fully responsible for the technical work. It is clear that these responsibilities have not been satisfactorily assumed, which is particularly worrying," says the report signed by the CEO of CEMEC Congo, Zhang Pingheng.

"Following your request for informal assistance at the end of October, we proactively dispatched a foundation treatment expert from China. On November 10, a thorough inspection was carried out on site. The preliminary diagnosis reveals that simple soil restoration or slope protection, although relatively simple, would not be a sustainable solution," the same source points out.

Urgent recommendations

"It is imperative to carry out a complete study involving drilling and the use of professional equipment to detect non-visible leaks... we have gathered all relevant information: original data, technical drawings, construction documents. Our experts and specialized institutions were consulted to define a plan for investigation and strengthening of structures. We wish to reiterate strongly that a simple repair of the damaged soil will not solve the fundamental problem. There is a real risk of such incidents being repeated, particularly with respect to the foundations of the transmission towers and substation on the shoreline. ...

etc, etc.

Country risk premium, anyone?

GLA