Ryan Mee, CEO of Fulcrum Metals, reviews FY23 and progress on the Gold Tailings Hub in Canada. Watch the video here.
Would have been a disaster if they gave us shares at 5p
Everyone would be flipping for 10% (so 5.5p)
Best to keep it to those who the BoD feel will absolutely not sell (only £600K) to allow the rest of us at least preserve some value to our holdings
As another poster stated, they were trading at 5.5p for a few days and nobody was interested so we had our chance
I'm speechless honestly, was throwing in the towel this am thankfully went for a long walk got back just before 9am
Many lessons learned today - am I happy we've raised at 5p (even with the CEO putting in £150K) absolutely not but do I understand the circumstances, of course. I still don't think it excuses a 5p placing but to raise £600K and put as much in as you could so the market only got say 30% of its expected allocation is a bold move and its currently paid off with the stock trading a whopping 40% above placing
Next steps and these need to come quick, because we cant be at the mercy of the market again in 9 months time
- revalue HyProMag, get a proper independent valuation and put that asset down on the books (cotec might do this)
- advance US funding (cotec)
- just DO SOMETHING with Songwe (tongue in cheek) there is ZERO value on the books for this asset, its probably better for SH and Malawi if we move this asset on to a bigger player, keep a royalty if possible
- Pulawy is promising but needs a lot of funding, its likely packaged with Songwe. The BoD know 100x more than I do so lets see what they achieve with Songwe/Pulawy
- Sell or do something with the Uranium asset
- The main prize, first commercial production in the UK and scale up worldwide, all of the above should be contributing t this goal in every possible way. Lets get multiple plants out there producing magnets and become one of the wests only recycled magnet producers.
Haven't seen anything like this since the covid days, unbelievable post placing strength
I suspect
- Jan go to market (10p) no interest
- Market now aware so short
- Push us down to 5p
- CEO puts in £150K plus other sticky holders (only £600k) total £750K to 'shaft' the city somewhat, as city and people on the side-lines hoping for a £2m raise at 5p
- Those rejected start buying last week ahead of placing annoucement knowing full well 5p stock is gone and even 6p is cheap
- Announcement today catches us retail investors out, but not realising there is probably £500K on the side-lines waiting to take stock which was 10p in Jan now 6-7p, so they are mopping it up
Hindsight! CEO actually made a really bold move to only raise £750K, of which £600K from existing investors really reducing any damage and causing a rush to buy cheap stock on the open market.
Not giving a ton of credit we are still at a ridiculous SP, but have to admit did a reasonable job with a very bad hand. (and we keep all of HyProMag)
Said I wouldn't post again until the share price recovered significantly
Nearly 7p ask on a 5p placing, thats a 40% rise... so posting again :P
Have to be straight, MKA need a serious lesson on PR - there is a truly superb story here, Cotec do superb job of showcasing it and its only a 1/4 of their holding, we need to do much better PR. Behind the scenes I think WD does a trememdous job as he seems to find lots of substantial partners, but if you are then relying on retail for funds you've got to play both sides of the coin.
In defence, he has now put in £250K over the last 12-13 months, that's absolutely significant so I know he is truly aligned (even if they do have lots of options etc.) thats a major commitment.
Onwards and upwards by the look of it, seems the entire market was waiting / on hold since january to take a position. It was 10p back then so even if you waited and missed the miniscule 5p placing, you're still getting a nice discount at 7p for your patience.
Feel a bit sick this morning, didn’t expect such an awful price for such a low amount, even if it is to minimise dilution the CEO has taken £150K at 5p
I may refrain from posting on this stock again, until either I move on (sell out) or the stock recovers considerably. Good luck to all.
LW that's my end game here
Why I am not overly worried about the short term cash position, if we raised at group level (even at 6p lets just say to remain unbiased) is £1m dilution really that much of a disaster? It's less than 10% of the group, so the market cap goes to £16m instead of £15m... big deal, we still would own
- 40% of the US JV
- 80% of the UK operations
- 60% rising to 90% of the German operations
- X amount of any new business (Canada, ME, Japan)
Let's say we get to 100t/pa by the end of 2024 (so 2025 would be a FY or 100t/pa scaling up) at minimum that would be £5m GBP in revenues at today's NdPr pricing, that's not to say we could receive much more for creating the finished (approved) magnets
If the German plant starts operating in 2025, then by the end of 2025 you've got two plants producing 100/tpa minimum (~£10m+ revenues)
The US plants could be fully funded by then, or if not fully funded using an IPO and the blueprints / business model from UK and Germany? How much would a £10m PA business that has three new plants fully funded (taking it to maybe £30m PA?) IPO for in the US? I would be shocked if it were less than $150m USD.
We would currently own at least 40% of that IPO (packaging it all up could take us back to 50% perhaps?) that's $75m USD, and that's if it IPO'd at $150m - by that stage it could IPO for much more (Peers are $300m+)
That IPO alone would be a 500% return on our current shareholding
Now if we move to refining (EU just passed a bill for 40% refining) with Grupa in Poland "Pulawy" how much is this worth to the business?
Lynas have received nearly $300m USD to build the exact same plant in the US
The EU has funded one plant in the pipeline in Estonia, and maybe one more in France - so there's tons of room for more processing plants
If our Pulawy project is accepted in the next 15 months (new EU timeframes now for processing) how much value does that add to MKA if the project will likely receive $100-200m in funding? That alone would surely push our share price up to Pensana levels at minimum (mine and processing plant) which is trading currently at £85m GBP (a 600% return from our current share price)
Now you add in Songwe economics, which as per the DFS they estimate (post MDA) that Pulawy if it were in operation, would improve the Songwe economics by 35% (not having to process in China for example) what would an MDA and investment in Songwe do to our share price? Maximised by Pulawy? £50m cap, £100m cap? Again another 600-700% rise
So if all goes to plan
Maginito could add pre-IPO 6-700% to the SP
Pulawy could add, if similar funding like in the US occurs, a 5-600% rise in SP
MDA and funding for Songwe, again 500%+ to the SP from this level
MDA, Funding for Songwe, Pulawy and a Maginito IPO in Q425,2026 what price do you put on all that?
It is really not out of the Q to see this 10x or more in the next 12-18 months, I've said it before and been wrong b
Malawi is as Malawi does
We all thought originally we were investing an a stable landscape however the last few years have really hammered Malawi hard, from the cyclone and of course inflation due to mass QE and 'all at once' re-openings.
The ministry are taking as much time as they can with these MDA's, for reasons unknown. At first we they blamed the Paladin deal, to never happen again, however Songwe et al could all have been looking at production in the next 9 months if they had agreed terms early on. Now it's going to be at least 2 years, maybe longer as the investment landscape has collapsed, arranging finance will be much more difficult today than it was in 2022 - so Malawi has truly missed the boat, well at least the first boat and we do hope another comes along. The sad thing is, its the locals that suffer the most whilst the politicians make it look like they are playing hardball, but where do you draw the line between hardball (a country that has devalued its currency and been bailed out by the IMF) and investors who want to progress mining operations on your territory and take all the financial risk?
Hence, MKA should be in no rush to begin operations, the investment has zero value on the books and is simply an ongoing cost that we should mitigate as much as possible.
Turned down Donald trump but not Julian Treger
Certainly an interesting addition, specific for rare earths and critical minerals
As said before, HyProMag certain has some value behind it. We do need to find a way to get the market to realise this however...
If there was a way we could reverse the CLN (which I think is possible) we could raise 2.5m euro today
Mkango raised £3.5m
Provided a 2.5m euro loan to HyProMag Germany via Maginito
As of Sep 2023, not a single penny of this had not been drawn down
The Euro grant was 3.7m euro, we had to pay the rest (hence the CLN) to fund the German Pilot Plant
IF, and its a big IF, that plant can secure funding from elsewhere (the MSP for example, I mean if you want critical RE's why are you making a small struggling company stump up 2.5m Euro!?) then we could reverse this CLN, get an extra £2m in the bank (GBP) and at the same time, secure lucrative funding for the German plant
It may be a long shot, but the BoD are as shrewd as they come
Should this come to fruition, I suspect the SP would at minimum double overnight
This is a potential long shot, nothing has been confirmed AT ALL in this regard and is total speculation
We paid £5m for the remaining 51% of HyProMag
Surely we didn't get swindled by a University!
Placing at 5p or below would actually confirm to be the case
This is how laughable it has become (in a painful way)
I am not saying it WONT go lower btw, I am just saying mentioning 4-5p, even if you despise this company, you have to realise that is such a ludicrous, downright insane valuation and even the biggest deramper and non-believers would be piling in at 4p.
If I am Cotec right now I am rubbing my hands.
There was a deramper on here who said 5.5p and I almost posted (it was 8p) at the time saying you cant be serious with that prediction, yet here we are.
The issue with the deramper provided no logic, so likely a lucky guess, yet there were tons of logic for supporting the price at 8p+, yet here we are. So to that deramper, Kudos.
On the note of Mkango, the Avacta fallout has clearly accelerate a movement away from anything that might need cash, and possibly any company that is pre-revenue. Avacta was a retail favourite, so the message has reached all corners of the market now.
The market will believe if Avacta, a retail favourite can place at such a whopping discount, then no company is safe from the institutions.
This is the biggest test our board have faced in their tenure, do they cave to the market and conduct a placing at what would now likely be 5p or lower, or do they find a way to create even more shrewd value, in which they have done many times before.
I believe in the Bod, we have good partners in Cotec who have funds available, but this is a very tough market and anything can happen.
Do we even need to fund? I am sure we will find out soon once the Q update is released.
Tough times, but better days lie ahead for this company, we are far from the finished article albeit we must navigate this storm.
The 2.75p covid lows aren't even that far off, which gives you an idea of how crazy the current valuation is. True panic has now gripped the market, only the strong and the brave will survive.
There's nothing wrong with RE's themselves, its the way in which they are processed / mined
If there was a replacement compound or element, id be more nervous
Ferrite has been touted as a potential replacement, however it doesn't come close to the performance of Nd magnets
A recycled NdFeB magnet trumps all other sources, because its 100% environmentally friendly, removes a waste liability in the process (landfill) and allows companies to say their products are made from 100% environmentally friendly, domestic sources.
There would be no Q about choosing RE's if they weren't difficult to mine in a friendly manner, although a lot of mines outside of China only have 30% of the environmental damage of some of the Chinese mines.
Recycling is the biggest threat to mining, which makes you wonder how this will all play out.
Probably the worst couple of weeks on the markets since the covid crash 2020, we hit 2.75p at the trough (38p at the peak!)
I recall the 2.75p days, we had 2x more cash in the bank vs our market cap - the market didn't care for that at the time of course, 1500% rise later you could have made a pretty penny
Now we are arguably valued at less than the 2.75p, back then we just had Songwe and HyProMag was an unproven asset worth £500K on the books
Four years later, our SP is just over double what it was back then (albeit dilution, so more closer to treble mcap wise) yet we have a proven rare earth recycling technology on the books that we own 80% of, with exposure to not just one but potentially five of these reactors. Impressive.
Songwe has been fully explored, a DFS produced that cost over $20m+ and simply awaits an MDA - one of the few construction ready RE assets in a friendly territory, albeit one that has inflation issues but its still a friendly place to operate.
Would I rather buy now at 6p with all what we have, or buy at 2.75p and reverse all the hard work?
Todays price appears to be more attractive
Back tot he price I first invested in at the back end of 2017, ~6.5p (waited for the dip after the initial Talaxis $7m was received) and thought, this is a company that knows how to get a good deal done.
Since then, they've actually signed numerous, very good deals!
Bought HyProMag for an initial £500K + option to convert an extra 8-9% for a 49% interest
Sold 20% of Maginito for £3.5m
Then bought the entirety of HyProMag for ~£5m (already owned 49%) giving it a face value of ~£10m, however Cotec paid £3.5m for 20% so that values it around £17.5m
Added more value to HyProMag via
- Placing for raise funds for a German plant + 3.6m Euro Grant
- Started at £.4m wind turbine project
- Concluded the UK first NDPR magnet commissioning post a £6m project
- First revenues commenced in Birmingham, POC completed
- Partnered with Cotec to set up 3 plants in the US (pending US govt funding ) and a magnet production facility
It's safe to say, the BoD have potentially 20 bagged the original £500K investment in HyProMag
We also have a Uranium asset, where the price of the commodity is up considerably in the last 9 months (100% spot rise, which sounds even better if you consider say at $50 spot price your profits may be $10, now your profits are up 600%)
Would be shocked if our strategic BoD are not initiating a JV as we speak... hang on does anyone remember this?
https://mkango.ca/news/mkango-announces-us-2-000-000-earn-in-agreement-with-metalnrg-for-the-thambani-uranium-license/
Was terminated because we eventually lost faith in Metal NRG (investors helped a lot with that one)
That was when spot price was $23, it is now $106!
So there may be a lot of JV interested parties knocking on our Thambani door
In terms of the MDA, I think it has now become a running joke. That happens on AIM, it comes with the territory. We will keep plodding on until terms are agreed, at this price and market cap it really can do us no harm now to keep our feet firmly on the ground and make sure we hold out for the best deal possible for ourselves and Malawi of course.
In terms of raising capital, when you take into account all of the above, you'd think we'd have multiple options! Maybe the amount of time this has appear to take, shows the complexity of it
- Do we sell more of HyProMag via Cotec?
- Do we look for a JV for the Uranium Asset? Or do we just sell the asset?
- Do we simply raise at equity level?
- Do our directors have enough for quick bridge loan?
- Can we sell a royalty for Songwe?
So many options, one hopes the final decision is not a discounted equity raise at 6p!
Should in theory be OK from here (all theory of course)
Strategic investor 00Nation taking 13.5% at a price of 0.5p, with option to take a further £500k at the same price on 'commercial agreement'
Speculation around what a 'commercial agreement' will include, hopefully some sort of crossover as their CS2 team was far superior to ours (and we need one for the world cup at minimum)
On the above note, buying at 0.48p seems like a good price. Obv anything could happen, but I don't think 00Nation would be too pleased if we raised below this after them taking a 27% stake.
The recent balance sheet showed they reduced costs by almost half in the last year, lots of work to do to remove that cash loss but perhaps this is the way. Still paying becks £1.75m a year, not the £3m+ gravy train he was once part of but thats a major major cost for a £3.5m company although do wonder without him would the company perish as its reach would be absolutely destroyed and sponsors could leave.
Guild might need to improve its counter strike team if it wants to attract sponsors
Knocked out of another tournament so no LAN exposure
00Nation our new investors team just disbanded, I bet we pick a few of their players up for to create a counter strike team worthy of sponsors
Decided to take a bit more, can't believe sub 0.5p was on offer but here we are
My take on recent developments:
https://twitter.com/glr_1990/status/1755148240154935721
I am unsure what Guild have planned, if you asked me 6 months ago I thought Sky may have been interested in a buy out, or sponsoring the CS2 team 'Sky Bet Eagles' sounds pretty good, but with 00Nation taking 13.5% and potentially taking a further 13.5% for £500K (which now looks super likely, as they've already disbanded their own CS2 team) it's difficult to predict accurately what happens next?
00Nation have a host of existing sponsors (Inc XBOX) when they had a competitive CS2 team they also had Parimatch which fits in with the betting angle, however when the deal was first signed, it was signed on the basis of expansion to the MENA region (which ofc holds this years world cup)
A commercial agreement is TBC between the parties, how would that work between investor and company?
One way I can think would be if the 'Investor' handed over their teams / sponsors to the Guild Group (else why take a 27% position if it were vice versa?) and the Guild group either swallows up all the 00Nation branding (or some of it) and they combine to become an esports superpower (OK maybe not superpower, but you get the point)
Guilds Bitstamp partnership ends soon (March?) so there is room (and need) for a extra sponsors to come on board. CS2 is a leading platform to sponsor and the best teams do not come cheap, so we could be looking at some serious positive developments in the coming weeks.