Member Info for goshawk250

Getting very exciting, and looking positive for the refinancing.

Is this the exercise your goose needs Roy?

Roy - the goose might be the mascot for MTL, slightly paraphrasing a nursery rhyme:

Before Christmas, the goose was getting fat,
The market makers wanted just a penny for this old tat,
As nobody would give a penny, a ha'penny would do,
If you spent your ha'pennies wisely then, lucky you!

Hope your goose (like mine) has a good run around, ready for flying soon.

Good point LB.

I see the MMs are quickly taking it back up now - risen on both the last two buys despite not moving with a similar number of purchases earlier on this morning.

Here's an extract from his original appointment RNS (as NED):

"Mr. Walker was nominated as a director by Runruno Holdings Limited in accordance with the Subscription
and Shareholders’ Agreement, which completed on 5 April 2011."

Runruno's influence at work in shaping the board?

A further interesting point is that during the middle of the last mezzanine debt restructuring (July 2017 - September 2017) with the two major shareholders, the CFO also changed (Stephen Kelly -> Andrew Rodgers). Very suggestive to me that the CFO departure is related to the debt restructuring.

Just noticed this: https://www.jobstreet.com.ph/en/job-search/jobs-at-fcf-minerals-corporation-runruno-quezon-n-v/

This is a list of jobs being offered at FCF minerals (MTL subsidiary) - quite a lot appearing in the last few weeks? Not sure if these are replacements or new jobs. In any case, ties in with the idea of the new CEO wanting to make workforce changes.

Some very interesting and informative views, as usual.

My view:
As Hawaii said - I suppose there's a risk that there's financial irregularities with two senior departures, in this way. Also, perhaps especially unnerving given that they're in the middle of the debt restructuring.

What reassures me, however, is that the CFO's departure is not for another 5 weeks. If financial irregularities had been found, surely the CFO would either be suspended or forced out immediately? Likewise if the restructuring had gone badly wrong. Sounds more like to me that he's been given a payoff and asked to stay to sign off the debt restructuring.

As far as I understand the chairman is now non-executive having already resigned previously and wouldn't need a notice period?

My take/speculation is that A) DB couldn't work with them and wants to form his own team, and has a strong track-record and presumably "supportive shareholders" have given him free rein to make changes to return share value or B) the major shareholders/lenders want their own representative on the board to oversee the recovery as part of the conditions of restructuring or C) the lenders/major shareholders want to reduce the executive paybill as part of conditions and wanted chairman/CFO to take a patchy which they felt was unacceptable (500k pa seems a high price given previous failures).

Perhaps a combination of these?

One further thing that reassures me is that DB is unlikely to have come here if he suspected any financial irregularities having done his own due diligence prior to starting. It would also be unusual to put out such an upbeat corporate update (presumably designed to impress investors/fund managers/lenders he is reported to have met) in this situation as well, I would have thought - would make him look rather silly?

Anyway, just my take and contribution to the debate - it's good to see so much activity and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the next few days/week's with you all.

Hopefully, this represents the final stages of agreeing refinancing.

We thought previously that the old chairman's departure was a condition of refinancing. Although I'm a relative newcomer here (well, since mid-December), my impression is that shareholders here didn't have much confidence in the chairman / CFO and it seems manifest that the market didn't either given the share price fall. Perhaps, the lenders and major shareholders have also lost patience and requested an executive clear-out.

Although the latest news creates some short-term uncertainty, I think it bodes well for a positive re-financing or possible takeover attempt as some have suggested, not without merit in my view. Perhaps, we will get this news with the operational update which is due soon. In any case, the loss of re-organisation of the executive team does portend well for a CEO who isn't afraid of stamping his authority and hopefully making some of the changes needed to make this a successful business, which I have every confidence it can be.

In any case, I've taken the opportunity to top up a little today at 1.18p, unfortunately not at the very lows but still with a lot of upside in my opinion.

Good luck everyone!

Slightly taking the mick I think:
Reported buys (based on mid-price) are 2x sells. We also know from adam that some buys have been below mid-price (I've also noticed this on IG) and so are reported as sales. However, can't complain too much as they did the opposite (ie. more sells than buys) a few days ago when re-rating the price.

If we do believe it's manipulation in order to gain cheap shares, hopefully, it portends good news soon.

Still could be connected with CEO, but perhaps not a condition of his appointment. Speculating, two scenarios would appear possible:

1. CEO not happy with original, "close to completion", deal and is using the authority which comes with his background to improve it (maybe even with an alternative funding stream provided by his previous employers).
2. The CEO wants a sufficient gap (ie. 2-3 week's) to make it look like his "win"

Only speculating though, I'm sure lots of other ideas possible

To be fair to the MMs, sells have vastly outnumbered buys today and the effective bid has been moved logically in line with the sells. The spread has been quite deceptive though - when I've checked throughout the day, the actual bid for a reasonable number of shares has been markedly higher than the advertised bid; it's also annoying that the ask has barely moved.

I guess all of this is predictable - the sudden increase saw short-term / day traders move in and now they've either taken their small gains and moved on with small losses to other opportunities. I imagine they'll be back the moment good news appears!

I agree with adam etc. - any downward movement at this stage is in some ways good for those of us following for a while and hoping for the bigger finance news to drop, as it should allow us to get in with any spare funds to lower our averages pending the news.

What we do know is that the company appears to be progressing well and in any case has a deadline to meet - so we should know soon and at least by end of January/beginning of February. Compared to a lot of AIM shares where you put your money down without much idea of expected news flow or timescales this adds to the appeal of MTL for me. In my opinion, the position so far of 1) a CEO with excellent credentials and 2) who has backing from major shareholders and banks and 3) who were happy to forgive the default, gives me a lot of confidence that we've seen the bottom and there is a lot of upside potential.

I'm relaxed about the price movement, which I just see as noise. I'm holding out for the positive news and will remain patient - it's good to see a cohort of like-minded people both on here and ADVFN.

Keep the faith!

Agree, some brilliant news here, and hoping for more.

Looks like some sort of manipulation ... I topped up with 87873 for 0.84 at 8.39am when the spread was 0.8 - 0.9, so is recorded as a sell, shortly afterwards I was quoted 0.835 to buy 100,000 ... so how many of those sells are actually buys is debatable.

Investor1111, looks like your theory about MMs not dropping the price below directors' recent buying level holding so far!

Interesting theory, although the majority of directors' purchasing has been in the teens. The last purchase by the CEO was actually 3.9p, which we're almost testing, perhaps we'll see if your theory holds tomorrow.

Looking at the trades at 12.06, the bid/offer was 6.5/7.2, ie. suggesting a buy as closer to ask. By 12.10, it went up to 6.8/7.3. Presumably the above supports it being a buy, although perhaps not strongly as no premium to the ask with such a large trade.

Think this changes because possibly it updates its register every day to reflect all current charges.

If you look at this for instance (https://services.gov.im/ded/services/companiesregistry/purchasefileanddocumentlist.iom?BusinessEntityId=331443) (another company just picked at random) this also shows 21/8, I've also looked at a couple of other companies which show exactly the same.

Approx £3m (£2.78m) based on 293m shares in issue and current mid price of 0.95p. I think £60k is based on pre-consolisation price, but post-consolisation share issue.