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I would have thought that if employees are blocked from buying in the market then they would also be blocked from exercising options, so it's seems a bit strange as I agree that it would have been possible to buy 70K shares even in this illiquid market. I think I will go back to sleep again!
Slim, like you, I'm finding this period very unsettling - Mark & Jim pull the rug from under our feet again just as we were all anticipating finance to be sorted before Christmas and looking forward to the construction phase starting in early 2023 with the hopes that the share price starts to rapidly recover towards £1 and beyond. We are all trying to be relaxed and logical but in the back of our minds we have previous scars of directors trying to shaft us and us losing everything (my biggest scar was ACQ - Arian Silver) and, as a consequence, our confidence in Mark & Jim to look after our interests has now been affected somewhat (understatement).
However, the fact that we are being offered shares is a positive - this the first time in the 12 years I've owned this share that this has happened - so the chance to pick up shares at 15p is attractive if you have the available money and feel that there is sufficient value in the company under most worst case scenarios - as I said in my previous post I will be taking my allocation because I think the risk is worth it, all things considered.
I very much respect ddd's analysis and have followed him over many years - I think his calculations are sound and are in the same ballpark as my own. There are obviously a huge number of factors to be taken into account when deciding on a valuation as other posters have illustrated with examples of sales of other mining companies so one can only guess a price in a range which has to be wide. I think a price in the range 40p-60p is achievable if there are a number of buyers interested, however, this would be reduced to 30p-50p if there was only one buyer involved. The big question is what is the minimum price Jim will accept!
However, we have to rely on the fact that Jim doesn't want to lose money and
Ddd, many thanks for all your in depth analysis over the last few days. I would just like to comment on your statement 'The RNS assumes £3.2m (plus the £1m loan note) so I guess they assume not everyone will go for it' and take a shot at trying to explain this.
Total shares available: 158,629,530
Mellon owns 18.719% of total shares = 29,694226
Total new shares offered (1 for 6): 26,438,255
Notional allocation of new shares offered to Mellon = 18.719% of 26,438,255 = 4,949,037
Allocation of new shares offered to other Shareholders = 26,438,255 - 4,949,037 = 21,489,218
Consideration of new shares offered to other Shareholders @ 15p = £3,223,382
All figures truncated.
So they are hoping that all 'other' Shareholders take up their allocation to yield £3.22 million - if they don't then the those new shares will be offered to Shareholders wanting additional new shares over and above their allocation.
The loan notes/open offer proposal states that Mellon's £1 million of loan notes will be automatically converted to new shares @15p if at least £1 million is raised in the open offer to other Shareholders (hopefully likely) this would yield 6,666,666 of new shares to Jim which is in excess of his notional allocation of 4,949,037. The proposal is not clear on this so it may be an incorrect assumption. I'm sure the detailed corporate action to be released during the week of 5th December will have a clearer specification of the process.
I will certainly be applying for my allocation and a few extra even though I'm over extended on this share - the chance to reduce one's average given the reduced expectations is too good to miss. Good luck to all!
Cf, I couldn't find him anywhere other than on the On Demand presentations - see my message below. If you go to Condor's virtual booth you can submit a question but I'm not sure who is on hand to answer.
Tester, I also registered for the Master Investor show but could only find Mark on the On Demand presentations tab - his presentation is already up and available. After listening to it there didn't seem to be anything new compared to recent presentations other than:
(1) He mentioned that one purchase of land was completed last week - presumably Mrs Rivers as Book5 mentioned
(2) General remarks on in-fill drilling on La India and Mestiza - two drill rigs to be operational - an announcement will be made when they start operating
(3) Listed recent recruitment of various positions including hydrologist, architect, mine planner, geochemist and also mentioned Luc English
(4) A decision will be made on the plant 'in the very near future'
That's about it!
Hi Isa
Sorry to disappoint you - it is certainly very reassuring when Jim puts his hand in his pocket!
Why 100K, why now? Circumstances really - yesterday I finally took the decision to dump my holding in POG after nearly 10 years. You may be aware of the shenanigans that have taken place over the summer and the acting CEO being locked out of the POG HQ by the staff was the last straw - the risk of that share imploding is, I think, growing every day. Shame really because it was shaping up to be one of those miracle recoveries based on its world leading POX technology. I reallocated the proceeds into CNR, HOC, PHSP and I also to intended to top up my CEY holding at the 150p level but missed that opportunity by about 10 minutes - I'll wait to see if it comes back to that level. POG is a good example of how things can go wrong - my first purchase was at 944p in 2011 would you believe, my last purchase was in March 2015 of a bundle of shares as part of a rights issue at 4.14p. My average price was around 30p after the rights issue and I never expected to ever get that in a month of Sundays, for example, at the start of this year it was at 12p! So all in all getting out at 32.5p gave me a bit of profit - but we don't talk about the return on investment over nearly ten years which is, of course, laughable.
So I don't know about being knowledgeable - I certainly have a lot of experience in backing a few winners and ruining it with some howlers the largest of which was AGQ (Arian Silver now called Alien Metals). This company is a text book case - the company had a decent silver prospect in Mexico which moved steadily along the development curve and purchased a second hand mill which was funded through a streaming agreement through an American company. The mill was shipped in and rebuilt on schedule. Milling started in time to meet the first commitment of the streaming deal. That's when things went wrong - the rock was too hard for the mill that was purchased and, to cut a long story short, the stringent conditions of the streaming deal were not met and AGQ forfeited its entire mine asset. Share price went to virtually zero overnight and the rest is history.
I have been in CNR for over ten years and still believe that it is different. Why? I think it's mostly down to MC and JM. MC has significant skin in the game, he also has integrity - two conditions that give us PIs some confidence that we won't get purposely shafted. JM is a great major shareholder to have - he has an good track record and people take notice of where he invests (although perhaps that interest hasn't quite extended to CNR yet). CNR is a screaming buy at the current levels - the risk/reward ratio is high if you can stomach the volatility - dyor, of course!
Just to advise that the sell of 100K shares at 14:19 was in fact my buy @ 43p. I trade through Canaccord and, although relatively expensive in brokerage, they always seem to be able to satisfy large deals without too much trouble.
I'm sure we are all fed up with the shenanigans on the Comex which deliver takedowns of the precious metals on a regular basis. However, a good indicator of global investment demand for the precious metals is the total tonnage in the various ETFs - the World Gold Council confirmed in April that there were inflows into the gold ETFs for the sixth straight month bringing the total holdings to 3,355 tons. The GLD holdings make up about a third of that total tonnage and I use the link below to track the movements in/out of GLD regularly as an indicator of whether investment demand is waxing or waning. Since the 20th March, when holdings stood at 908 tons, holdings have either increased or stayed the same on 49 out of the last 52 dealing days - total tonnage in GLD currently stands at 1,133 tons. I think it is safe to say that gold investment demand is continuing to stay strong despite the efforts of the bullion banks, the BIS etc. - this should provide tail winds for CNR going forward.
http://www.spdrgoldshares.com/assets/dynamic/GLD/GLD_US_archive_EN.csv
Had a look at your mininingbusinessnet link which was very interesting - it certainly was from a few years back as I note that it quotes the current price at the time of the article as 168.5p - looking at the charts the last time the price was there was in January 2013, just prior to the $300-$400 drop in gold in April that year. Looking forward to the price being in that territory again!
Thanks for all your research and balanced views over the lifetime of this share - like many others have said in the last couple days it has been a tough ride but hopefully our patience will pay off in the end.
Mb54, the two 50Ks were mine - I put in an order for 100K @ 17.25p at the open. The fact that the broker had to split the order and the second half took 45 mins to execute might mean that the mms are coming to the end of the supply from the seller. However, the spread remains very tight which should mean that there is an even amount of buys/sells so not sure what conclusion to draw.
I'm sure all the LTHs are now used to these excruciating periods of waiting, however, it doesn't get any easier to remain calm and detached when these large holders dump their holdings at any price!