Ben Richardson, CEO at SulNOx, confident they can cost-effectively decarbonise commercial shipping. Watch the video here.
Pre trial review tomorrow:
'The court has listed the Pre-Trial Review to be heard on 30 April 2024. This is part of the normal litigation process and is predominantly concerned with administrative preparations for trial.
The court will also hear an application by the DHSC for summary judgment in relation to one aspect of its claim, as part of which the DHSC is seeking judgment to be entered for the full value of its claim. Having taken legal advice, the Company considers this application to be very weak with low prospects of success, and is confident that the court will dismiss the application. It is not known when the court will give judgment in relation to the application. It may be during or at the end of the Pre-Trial Review, or a short time thereafter.
The Company will announce the outcome of the application in due course.'
From what I know they have been trying to enact change behind the scenes for a long while now, including a fellow member of the Poddar family (you can guess who I'm talking about) but Shishir wasn't budging or engaging.
I guess this is taking the attempt to force some sort of reaction from Shishir to the next stage.
Here's a few more days to see clearly that a drop of 50% is happening now that fees have reduced and difficulty has adjusted upwards.
April 12th: 32.3
April 13th: 30.4
April 14th: 29.5
April 15th: 31.7
April 16th: 29.1
April 17th: 29.7
April 18th: 30.1
April 19th: 30.8
April 20th: 57.3
April 21st: 25.2
April 22nd: 21.2
April 23rd: 25.2
April 24th: 19.6
April 25th: 16.2
April 26th: 16.6
April 27th: 15.7
April 28th: 15.5
Argo will start May mining 1.5 coins a day.
The markets turned very quickly from 2021 onwards. Growth as measured by the sort of things you allude to (increased overall operational size) was rewarded in share price appreciation but almost overnight liquidity fell off a cliff and any small cap needing funding or even worse, indebted, collapsed. For every ex YG holder angry at Lyn there's two hundred more with the same frustrations over their own particular AIM small cap ceo but the common denominator is the broader market rather than all these CEOs and management teams becoming useless overnight.
This is all about his ability given the circumstances he is now under. It's all about whether or not he's capable to get the most out of YG with ample cash at his disposal, executing M&A successfully and integrating all of the parts smoothly and synergistically into the wider group.
If we're honest none of us have any idea how successful he is likely to be but what we can say is that the circumstances that led YG to collapse in value don't apply here and so there isn't much read across to be had.
THX halved their net debt from $32m to $16m in a year where they only sold 73k ounces with minimal margin, in 2024 we are looking at 95k ounces at double the margin! Depending on investment activities would expect to see THX turn net cash positive around mid year.
Cash in bank fairly low due to paying off $8.2m debt in Q1 - big move in POG started in mid March so yet to see any of that hit the accounts.
Exciting year ahead now will plenty of news catalysts on various fronts and huge figures to be posted quarter by quarter.
That's the thing though CS what makes a good AIM ceo? It's one that, like you say, first and foremost knows how to play the AIM game and is able to attract investment. Most of the 'big wins' on AIM require a healthy smidge of fortune and what you want is a leader that is able to make the most of anything that goes their way and leverage the sentiment when it's with them.
I feel Lyn is likely to be able to do that and on the specific business front he's been given a second bite at the cherry with a company, sector and market that he knows inside out, which should also be useful when it comes to M&A.
I was planning to largely exit upon a positive dispute outcome but now I'm leaning towards keeping at least 50% and giving this new management team a chance to show what they can do, unless any spike is simply too good to resist.
If Lyn Rees was as useless and profligate as frustrated YG holders claim he is there is no chance he would have finagled his way to Novacyt CEO within a handful of months. James McCarthy may be a rubbish CEO but he's a sensible enough man, he waited til there was a suitable replacement to step aside and clearly both James McCarthy and Wakefield consider Lyn to be that individual.
And if profligacy is top of the list of accusations then it's great news that the former YG CFO isn't joining too - instead we have a safe pair of hands in Steve Gibson keeping Lyn in check this time around.
There's no doubt about it that Nick and the board made the wrong calls re the placing, at least with the benefit of hindsight. Equally it's understandable why he would have expected the signing of the Anglo deal in 2023 to support the share price sufficiently in order to place at at least 3p in 2024, and maybe higher. Instead he got caught on the wrong side of a massive collapse in valuation for any non-cashed up small cap and we get to where we are now.
The warrants are a bit frustrating but in the grand scheme of things it's almost immaterial if the JV proves a roaring success. Before the placing there was 1.233B shares in issue and now there are 1.446B. A placing at a much more stomachable price would have meant perhaps 1.35B shares at this point with slightly fewer warrants.
To act like the lowball placing has blown any chance of meaningful returns is quite obviously daft.
I'll take that question.
In a commodity bull market there is A LOT more upside to be had from small caps than there is from established players. Of course as always it comes with more risk but that's the aim for any small cap investor, be in during boom times and be long gone during downturns.
ARCM may well prove to be a very good example. Anyone investing here over the past few years were caught out by a liquidity crisis on AIM and a copper market that never quite hot up enough to offset that, (as well as disappointing mgmt decisions).
But now ARCM is near 5 year lows, the long wait for the drilling campaign to get started is over and even the most negative of posters on here are saying 'copper prices set (sic) to rocket'
Of course many will choose to invest instead in the mining giants and will probably see very healthy returns but strike gold (well copper) in Zambia as is expected and the returns from 1.7p here will dwarf those from the likes of Glencore - too high risk for your average investor sure but more than worth the risk for those that have done their homework and have an appetite for exposure to outsized gains.
And a reminder https://twitter.com/BigBiteNow/status/1755895067699454248
Tomorrowtoday, as self apointed LSE spokesman could you clarify something for me please as I'm a bit confused. On the one hand we have this: 'Please vote in favour of the resolutions proposed at the general meeting of Tirupati Graphite plc to remove the current board and appoint new directors.'
But we also have this: 'If the resolutions are passed, who will run TG at executive level?
We are not suggesting that the executive team is removed but we are suggesting that a new board is appointed to oversee the executive team. '
So is Shishir removed if the resolution passes or are the four new NEDs simply appointed alongside? If the latter we're basically back to where we were before Isabel resigned but with two extra NEDs on top.
What's the investment case for the NA miners at the moment? From where I'm sitting the halving has come and gone, fees have fallen back to normal levels and so miners are back making the equivalent of ~$35k pre halving?
Is it a case of picking those with a large HODL in preparation for an expected surge north in the BTC price?
Saluc, whilst I'm not taking sides I am reliably informed that even Hemant resigned for similar reasons. the joint founder of TGR and a Poddar himself. I've rarely been negative on here and have tried my hardest to support the company throughout the last year but it does get to the point where I have to start to accept that those on the inside are able to judge the situation better than I can.
Look at how Shishir tried to play down Murat's resignation, claiming it was for personal reasons and yet here he is as part of the group. The same is true of Hemant. At the very least it seems pretty evident that Shishir is rather difficult to work with and it is starting to seem like the debt markets are closed off to TGR whilst he's in charge.
Do you realistically think the golden trio of Shishir, his daughter and Alastair Beth are going to drive hundreds of millions of pounds of value back into the company? I'm sure Alastair's a decent guy and may be capable but I don't think I've ever seen someone with sucha lightweight CV be promoted so rapidly to an executive team of a FTSE listed company. Needs must perhaps but I wanted to see proactivity on this front and yet nearly two months have passed without any governance update.
Shishir needs to prove otherwise to the claims above... he needs to prove that there are credible NEDs willing to join with him at the helm, that he's able to attract further investment etc otherwise the company is going nowhere without action.
If it comes to words and targets TGR has missed theirs / performed worse than virtually all others. Shishir maintained the 6100-6500T q1 target right past the quarter and yet it was missed by a country mile, not even close to half. Q2 then came in even lower and after that we once again get quite bullish targets for H2 but so far , with the half year over, we haven’t even been given a hint of how either Q3 or Q4 went.
As it happens TGR in many ways are in a healthier position than many other graphite miners due to taking a low cost approach to their growth strategy, so whilst misses have been egregious the losses have remained modest but that doesn’t excuse the misses.
Shishir floods the airwaves when he has good news to share but goes into hiding when the opposite needs releasing and as of this point in time has shown no ability to turn the ship around.
However it’s hard to imagine the four that are part of the requisitioning group have what it takes either. So all in all a pretty miserable situation
Whilst I'm on the fence over this requisition wouldn't this be the best time for Shishir to actually start delivering on his promises? Go back to March and look at the flurry of rns' we got - one after another. We had 'Corporate Update', 'Global Graphite Outlook', 'Madagascar Exploration Update', 'Business Development Update' and PMDR dealing yet 6 weeks later and still nothing. No tax rebate from the Madagascan government that's been talked about for nearly a year now and was supposedly imminent, no CFO in place, none of the new independent NEDs, no update with actual production figures.
It would only take modest operational improvement for Shishir's position to be safe but so far in 2024 the jury is out.
It's a tricky one this for me. On the one hand it's clear Shishir is difficult to work for and is possibly not up to the job of growing TGR into the entity it could otherwise become with competent leadership however some of what is being demanded and claimed seems to me, disingenuous - front and centre is the supposed lack of independent directors yet the only reason for that is because Isabel and Murat resigned, leaving Shishir with no choice but to install whoever he could which was essentially his only two senior corporate employees (his daughter and Alastair)
So Isabel and Murat make up two of the four proposed directors that TGR supposedly badly need yet they were already on the board and chose to resign... so why not be more honest and simply say they don't think Shishir is fit to run the company plain and simple rather than using the excuses they have which they themselves forced.
I don't think so no, they've just 'rescheduled' it meaning they benefit more now from POG, in the immediate term from this $2300/oz price but if gold stays here or goes even higher through 2024 they'll be losing out there instead as it will be hedged/collared a lot lower than spot price. If they had actually used up cash doing this Dan would have emphasised that either in the rns or IMC but he didn't.
They are potentially giving up future cash revenues to maximise short term generation, understandably as they need to navigate the next few months whilst the cards are stacked against them.
I don't follow Corz like I used to but their daily mining reporting gives a little insight into what's happening re fees and post halving, albeit I think they're also installing new machines alongside. Here's the last few weeks for example:
April 12th: 32.3
April 13th: 30.4
April 14th: 29.5
April 15th: 31.7
April 16th: 29.1
April 17th: 29.7
April 18th: 30.1
April 19th: 30.8
April 20th: 57.3
April 21st: 25.2
April 22nd: 21.2
April 23rd: 25.2
April 24th: 19.6
April 25th: 16.2
Whatever happens, as near to 100% STX will be relying on cash to get them though the rest of 2024 so the question is who provides it? AOP? This is an FDA approved drug so if it is as good as the mgmt team claim it to be it's obviously worth something, the problem is they won't be able to fight off a lowball bid from the likes of AOP this time around.
Last year the mandatory cash offer was 6.01p, this time around they could easily pull off a TO at less than half that.