Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
The $160m makes sense when you consider it is to replace all existing debt financing (including accrued interest) and provide a larger working capital fund, at best the 'new' borrowing only amounts to $25m. The SP over-reaction has been driven by holders who only see the headline figure and fail to understand what it's actually for / the make up of the money - your 'back of a fag packet' comment being a prime example.
Able, a deal in China was / is / supposed to be the 'placing'. The issue now is will this land in time to allow the company to scale up / commercialise or will they have to do a separate placing to tide them over until China comes to fruition or will one of the near(er) term commercial deals be structured in such a way to allow for commercialisation in relation to that deal alone (and thus give them the breathing space required)? Things are definitely more precarious now than they were 6 months ago.
Robinhood, if you read the RNS you'll see that the company have done nothing wrong here, in fact if anything they've done more than they need to by having the independent analysis done and updating the website once they believed the situation had changed (back in January 2019). Remember it is the duty of the individual who buys / sells shares to notify the company of any changes to notifiable holdings, not for the company to go looking. So why the RNS today - most obvious answer is that the company were finally, officially, informed of a change yesterday (even though this occurred 12 months ago) and as such they (the company) are duty bound to inform the market; the other answer would be to also try and dispel some of the muck raking that is going on, though I'm sure it will be spun in a negative manner against the company (in the vein of 'oh look we've caught them out again, aren't we clever and aren't they naughty').
What you say is true as I've seen him quote his target buy out price of £36 per share. He definitely appears to have 'issues' and needs help. He also thinks he's going to lead a class action (on what grounds?) and sue the CEO / BoD for all their worth. For the sake of his mental health (and those around / close to him) - he did claim when lows were hit recently that he was still 10% UP - he should sell up and move on.
Kalan, unfortunately until the fundamentals of the underlying business change - ie large scale commercialisation is achieved - I fear that you are not wrong and so plenty more 'fun and games' to be had yet......
Jdubya, I think this has all started from some muck raking by the scareprohets crew who are claiming to have unearthed something that either is being purported to exist (by VRS) but doesn't or is not being reported (by VRS) and should be. I'm not a subscriber to that particular website and so don't know the detail have just seen references to something that they have published elsewhere. They do seem to have a bit of a 'thing' for VRS at the moment.
I suspect that this is shareholder wish fulfillment based upon the 2 sportswear collabs that work with major brands (I think MAS may have also listed Nike as a customer).
Looks like the 'flippers' have been in today banking yesterday's gains (plus the additional ones from the FOMO froth of this morning) hopefully things will settle down now and we go to a more stable pattern whilst we await news - wouldn't surprise me if we ended slightly down.....
RobinHood, I think you are getting way ahead of yourself in respect of any listing in Shanghai of Beijing Versarien Technology Company Limited (the WFOE in China) as this will be a long way off - if ever - a more likely candidate would be the Versarien Graphene (Hong Kong) Limited entity listing in Hong Kong though this first needs to start receiving revenues from Asia (eg Sri Lanka, Korea, Japan). Remember the two Chinese deals are for up to 15% of Versarien plc [the UK entity] (in line with the authorisations for the same given at the last AGM) with this holding taking the form of issuance of new shares to the investing party.
Maybe that is part of the plan as isn't the FedAir ownership separate to the FJ Zimbabwe ownership, the sale of the later thus giving some capital to the support the former???
Robin Hood, that's a good suggestion, and maybe part of the answer though I think there are a couple of other angles too:
1. I believe I read / heard somewhere that the VRS process has 3 stages, of which only 1 is best done locally near point of use
2. Part of the above is the Coca Cola approach to life - a key element is the secret sauce that is supplied to the later stages of the process (in the same way Coke supplies the bottling syrup to the global bottling plants)
3. NR also said that they were looking at some form of remote control of the local machines giving VRS the ability to make them inoperable
luckyorange, for me part of the reason for the BIGT deal not concluding by the AGM is to do with the emergence of the other Chinese player (Jinan Bo Guan Building Engineering Co., Ltd ("JBG"))who want to build Graphene parks and aren't interested in the IP, just want the 'anchor tenant' as it were. Given that IP protection and China aren't exactly happy bedfellows taking the developer option makes more sense to me (also was this the 'signing ceremony' that featured Chris Leigh in December, that was unearthed?).
On the other board at 0001 last night it was claimed that there is only 1 HMG secondee (ie Matt Walker) this is not true - see 26th February 2019 RNS - Peter Jay was replaced by Yi Lou, and until we hear otherwise have no reason to believe that she is still with the company.
On the other board one of the more frequent peddlers of half truths is at it again, misleading everyone in relation to Neill Rickets Options sales - here they suggest that NR 'took out' the entire gross proceeds of the sales rather than the net after Tax (CGT) figure all to inflate the numbers and mislead. They said:
750,000 sold at £0.295 to raise ca£221k - correct (though these were 'core holding' rather than options)
250,000 sold at £0.615 to raise ca£154k - incorrect these cost £0.1225 and were then taxed to net out at ca£95k
403,720 sold at £1.21 to raise ca£488k - incorrect these cost £0.133 (blended average) and then taxed to net ca £313k
307,970 sold at £1.361 to raise ca£419k - incorrect these cost £0.29 and were then taxed to net ca£238k
So whilst their overall point is valid they are lying (at worst) or misleading (at best) not that that is a surprise given their obvious agenda, and apparent love of facts (especially if they can present them, out of context).
I know markets aren't exactly rational but when buys out number sells 2.5:1 you'd think the SP would go up rather than down.
This is painful and I look forward to the company commenting in due course - not knowing all the rules around when / why comms might be limited / restricted does the silence mean that they are in some kind of 'closed period' pending a major announcement (good or bad) of some sort? If so how long are these periods usually and when may it end?
Forestfred, yep I'm still here, just don't post so much (and not at all on the other board).
I see they are now trying to cast doubt on the Lansdown Chemicals distribution agreement, couple of things that they might not find too comfortable...
1. Lansdown Chemicals are now called OQEMA
2. OQEMA sold some Nanene to a European Tyre manufacturer, which people seem to think was Continental. Think this sale may even have been mentioned in an RNS
3. Whilst it is true to say that if you search the OQEMA website for Graphene you get no results, however if you search for Nanene you get 2!
Been thinking about the other item that is always raised by the bears - costs of production and sales prices - these are constantly called for and we are told that because VRS don't share this is a) a bad thing / sign (implying they have something to hide) and b) without them a 'true' value (of the SP / MarCap) cannot be determined. The simple response to this is that this question of course is BS and, whilst appearing innocent, is deliberately misleading, after all how many companies provide such product level details - I can't think of a single one eg how much does a bar of Dove soap cost Unilever to make and what do they sell it for? How much does it cost for GSK to make a dose of Advair or Ventolin and what do they sell that dose for? The answer is nobody (external to the companies) can say all you can see is what is in the reported P&L, VRS is (and should be IMHO) no different.
The numpties (especially one very angry man) have been out in force on the other board demanding to know why the O&G deal hasn't been delivered yet, and using this as another example of VRS (and Neill Rickett's in particular) failure to deliver - yet they conveniently ignore the fact that the Interim Results RNS, where this was mentioned, clearly says during Q1. They also fail to understand the process big corporates have to go through (especially sign off / approvals processes) for contracts, even more so if they are with new suppliers and / or novel new materials.
Though I guess for them a 'half truth' is about as near the truth as they can muster, though they'll be pleased that their scare tactics have worked, like they did this time last year (when VRS was last at these levels).
Robinhood, my understanding is that HAYD don't actually make Graphene, only functionalise it. They are also a Partner / Customer of VRS (there is an RNS about collaboration / partnership and NR has mentioned they are a customer).
These were options, rather than core holding, that were cashed in. You'll also see they were at below the high price of the time.