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As far as I can tell - and please correct me, anyone, if you have better info - it looks like she was taken on by the govt for a 6 year term and there were safety issues in her 2019 assignment that meant she was fired from that post, then she had a year in the govt with no specific responsibilities until she got lime/cement last October. She's now resigned even thought there's a year on her 6 year term remaining, in order to be Jokmokk Iron CEO. The announcement of her resignation was from K-PT's press secretary, so I'm going to assume she knows a bit about Beowulf from the permitting process and a fair bit about the inside of the Ministry of Enterprise from her 5 years there.
Getting (someone like) Ulla on board makes a lot of sense, as CEO of Jokmokk Iron I’m not so sure as her expertise looks to me as though it’s necessary to a finite stage of the process towards opening a mine, rather than running it (but maybe that’s a clue too?). Speeds up the burn rate that’s for sure. On we go. At least an RNS gives us something to talk about rather than devouring ourselves…
As Tintin suggests, this is likely to be the Swedish equivalent of Judicial Review in this country. The press like to use the word "sue" as it's more widely understood in the context of court action. Once a government makes a decision it can only be overturned in court if the decision has been made ultra vires (outside the government's legal powers) or intra vires but on a material mistake on the facts. It's not necessarily super expensive for the Sami's to bring an action against the government - they could just apply for review and say it was ultra vires and leave it to the court, but not much chance of winning if they do that. It's not surprising that the share price has reacted badly as legal action always brings uncertainty, but in order to win and overturn the grant of the concession the Samis will either have to show that the government didn't have the power to grant it in the first place or alternatively they had the power but made a material mistake on the facts. In reality it's much more likely it's just a negotiating tool to push up the likely compensation from BEM or to delay things for the same reason. The concession toothpaste is out of the tube and the Sami's won't be able to get it back in.
On the topic of early spats, I don't believe ad hominem attacks add anything useful and just sour the mood of the board, so those indulging should knock it off. Thanks
There will certainly be trades today, just maybe not on AIM. As yet there hasn’t been a day when less than 1m shares have changed hands in Sweden. Over 260 trades yesterday. Given that over 76% of BEM shares are in Swedish hands it’s not trade levels in AIM that are the most significant element. That said, trading levels are lower there too since the excitement of the new year’s events, which is to be expected whilst background work on environmental permitting and exploitation options progresses.
£2.8m in cash on 31 March. How long do we thing the runway is, folks? Not all that long if we spend another £1m on Vardar shares. I wonder how much the rate of spending increases now that BEM is engaging on all fronts for Kallak; scoping studies, infrastructure planning, consultations with locals etc.
Some good comments lately, thanks all, interesting to read. Fact is, we’re all in the dark at the moment about what’s happening and none of us like it much. But it has to be that way; the alternative would be for Kurt to be publishing his negotiating position for all to see and hence undermining (excuse the pun) BEM’s own position. For example, he may be saying that he intends to build and operate a mine so that potential purchasers of Kallak think he’s unwilling to sell the resource and they’ll have to offer a higher price. If he just hawks it round the market, obviously wanting to flog it, there are only a few potential purchasers and they’d try to get it at the cheapest price. Personally I’d rather it was sold as I think it will be hard to transition from an explorer to a production miner, but if I have to put up with a public position that helps push the price up I can bear that. It all comes back to there being 190m tonnes of great quality ore in the ground and sooner or later the SP will reflect that, however it gets mined. GLA
Jess - 100,000 buy….someone with a bit of loose change likes these. The concession put BEM in a different ballpark. Aside from the potential for another Swedish frenzy/panic there’s nothing going to move the SP on AIM significantly until the announcement of some concrete progress. Detailed scoping or granting of environmental permission for example.
TFE - interesting post, but the one thing that scares me most about BEM is the prospect of attempting to build a mine on Kallak. Anyone who's ever attempted to lead a business through a capital intensive growth phase to do something the business has never done before will be aware of the risks. The skills gap between a junior miner with 10 employees (BEM) and a full scale mining company is immense. Maybe the scoping work and the environmental permits are possible, but even that would be better as a JV with a partner who intends to purchase the site once various criteria are met. If that's what's being negotiated at the moment it'll be months before we hear a whisper about it. In the meantime, there's info out today that indicates there will be a massive and growing shortfall of graphite resources for lithium batteries over the next decade +. I'd be glad to hear from someone knowledgeable on batteries whether our deposit in Finland fits that bill, because I think it does and if so it could be bigger than Kallak. Gold in Kosovo could be a cherry on the cake but I'm discounting that at least for now.
Eric, you're a good man, honest and willing to take things at face value. That makes your different from most investors. An RNS saying that the company notes the fall in share price but knows of no reason etc etc... would be greeted by most with cynicism bordering on contempt for what looks like a desperate attempt to shore up the SP. It would undermine credibility rather than boost it. KB's job is not to be a cheerleader for the SP just to keep it up, it's to do the hard work in the background to improve the fundamentals and say something when there's something concrete to say. Right now he's either hard at work on a deal that he's not yet at liberty to disclose (or we're screwed - at least so far as Kallak is concerned).
I don't agree with everything in Oaktree's post, but they are all legitimate opinions, and it's always nice to hear considered views from other posters. There's one other thing we've learned that's not in Oaktree's list - Swedish investors are fickle and driven by momentum far more than anything else. with well over 70% of the equity held in Sweden they've taken it up to 20p and back down again in the course of 6 months based on rumour/expectation. It could keep going down to 5p or 4p etc, but equally it wouldn't take much in the way of news to take it back up again. That's not great for long term holders as it's not really connected to fundamentals, but it has a bearing on fund raising and certainly on the terms of any deal KB can do. It is what it is. My point is that there doesn't have to be a working mine or even a finalised deal for the SP to swing dramatically back up again (or keep on going down as it is). We're on a rollercoaster, but at the end of the day the fundamental factor is over 380m tonnes of very high grade iron ore. GLA
Yesterday there was discussion about what has to be made public knowledge by way of RNS. A certain poster who likes to appear very knowledgeable made some sweeping comments to suggest there would have been an RNS if BEM was in the course of negotiations over the concession. To clarify, the relevant AIM rules are set out below. It seems to my legal eye (20 years as a lawyer) that negotiations that have not been concluded or are not certain to be concluded do not fall within the definitions and therefor are. Or required to be reported. This there may be plenty going on in the background, as inferred by today’s RNS. Indeed to report negotiations that have not been concluded could be a breach of other reporting rules about manipulating the company’s SP by misleading the market into thinking a deal is more likely than it is in reality. Patience, eh.
11. An AIM company must issue notification without delay of any new developments which are not public knowledge concerning a change in:
? its financial condition;
? its sphere of activity;
? the performance of its business; or
? its expectation of its performance,
which, if made public, would be likely to lead to a substantial movement in the price of its AIM securities.
Disclosure of corporate transactions
Substantial transactions
12. A substantial transaction is one which exceeds 10% in any of the class tests. It includes any transaction by a subsidiary of the AIM company but excludes any transactions of a revenue nature in the ordinary course of business and transactions to raise finance which
do not involve a change in the fixed assets of the AIM company or its subsidiaries. An AIM company must issue notification without delay as soon as the terms of any substantial transaction are agreed, disclosing the information specified by Schedule Four.
There’s a lot written between the lines of that RNS. Probably too implicit for many PIs for there to be a dramatic SP improvement (yet) as it will take a while to catch on. It’s been a busy few weeks for Mr Budge no doubt.
To my mind there are 2 obvious reasons why we’ve heard next to nothing since the concession was granted - there may be others that aren’t obvious to me. The first is that KB hasn’t made a plan and doesn’t know what to do next, which would be very bad. The second is that he’s in the midst of delicate negotiations over the future of Kallak with 3rd parties who have - as is standard - insisted the negotiations are kept confidential due to their market sensitivity, which could be very good. Call me charitable if you like but I prefer to believe the latter and while the SP is irritating me I think it’s a temporary thing. Of course everyone is free to believe whatever they want and to hold or sell accordingly. GLA
Plenty of chatter in the media about the massive amounts of cash that the likes of Rio, BPH and Glencore are throwing off at the moment. They are talking dividends and buy-backs though typically in the past they have made acquisitions. Not surprisingly they are all saying it's about good housekeeping, discipline and not making bad deals just because they have cash. They would say that, obviously, for fear of prospective vendors seeing them coming. BEM's market cap is currently £57m; five or ten times that would be small change for any of the big boys who are used to acquiring new sites for billions. Of course, if that's something that's actively being pursued or discussed it won't be highlighted in an RNS
None of us are going to get along with everyone we meet on here. That's what the Filter function is for - if someone gets up your nose so much you feel the need to post abusive messages try just putting them on filter instead. Works a treat for me. Also saves the BB from being clogged up with ad hominem nastiness.