Member Info for HarChris

The rumours are nonsense repeatedly spread by a couple of deranged individuals, that's it.

The company put out the below rns in August to clear up some misinformation but the same individuals just ignored it and carried of with their same line of attack. They shouldn't be updating the market because two individuals keep screaming stuff on a bulletin board.

Besides, what will move the share price is delivering and proving those who doubt the management wrong alongside wider market and graphite sector sentiment improvement.

https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/TGR/update-on-tirupati-speciality-graphite-fh0noy40vzl9zmd.html

To feel that the current valuation is fair and reasonable you've got to conclude that the Madagascar operations, the 30kt capacity with 15kt-20kt run rate guidance for H2 + the Suni acquisition which gives TGR enormous permitted assets and geographic and product diversification and which cost ~£7m and all the years it's taken to get to this stage commands a valuation of less than £12m?

Debt is negligible and less than cash in bank now so all the work and costs to list the company, the years it's taken to get to within a needle's width of being the first profitable graphite producer outside of China anywhere in the world (large/jumbo flake prices remain high) and in a sector that's at the heart of the energy transition with many forecasters predicting a graphite deficit starting at the back end of 2024 and lasting right to the end of the decade comes out at a £12m valuation?

Failure is being so heavily priced in now, if the opposite turns out to be true this will prove to have been a very short-lived wild price mismatch.

Just imagine another company seeing all the developments in China decided to pivot and become a vrfb manufacturer now? They’d be at least three years behind and need to be able to raise £50m… at a minimum … in this environment?!

IES are the outright ex China global leaders in this relatively new tech, they’ve just got to bring it home now and deliver on all the promise.

Fortunately there is a date in sight now and the closer we get to that the more opportunity cost there is for staying and watching on the sidelines, will be interesting to see where the SP goes between now and May.

Ps very brave of you Amers, hope you’re mightily rewarded with five times returns at £2.50!

They’re not against equity raises but they have stated their intention to keep dilution to a minimum many times. Management believe they are close to reaching profitability in Madagascar so having missed the opportunity to raise at a much higher price (at 30p Shishir said they had no intention to raise because share price was too low, hindsight ‘n all) they weren’t going to go and dilute us to oblivion at 11p.

They simply raised what they needed to for the time being to cover CLN payments and to pay directors (shares rather than salary), the plan will be to wait for significant operational improvement and sentiment before raising again, ideally with a debt package in the interim.

Oh and one final point… the Poddars do not own 51% of the company, that’s simply untrue.

That relates not jut to the energy transition / switch to EVs and hence higher demand for graphite but also the transition and move away from the more carbon intensive synthetic graphite to natural graphite.

... and $30m+ EBITDA is far from out of the question this year with a little further strengthening in the price of gold, something that's reasonable to assume given the state of geopolitics at this moment.

As long as POG remains supportive we are talking a (virtually) debt free miner churning out 38,000 - 40,000 oz next year at an AISC of ~$1400 and by the following year a debt-free gold miner producing 50000+ oz at an AISC probably more like $1200.

A $45m mcap is bonkers given the fact Serabi could well be being forecasted to make that in profit this time next year!

In terms of operations in the run up to the halving Argo produced 124 BTC in January, a long 31 day month. We enter February with hash rate about 8% higher for the first two weeks and expecting a further 10% jump as things stand for the last two weeks of February. Plus there's only 29 days this month.

We could be looking at less than 110BTC posted for February.

Broomtree, the latest accounts (half year report) actually give a negative equity figure about double what you shared so it is difficult to conclude that Harl is undervalued from a fundamental basis... but equally it's rather hard to value Harl right now because of the FSS contract, revenues in which will only start to be seen in size from next year. And also (to a slightly lesser extent) IM.

The big positive is that IES got significant funding away when they needed it - £22.5m in 2020, £29m at the back end of 2021 and £21.5m last year.

Now with the market cap much lower they'd be unable to raise the above amounts through equity but the mcap still remains supportive enough to get enough funding over the line in combination with a sensible loan package, as you point out.

Bear in mind the warrants were to be exercised at 50p so we're only talking £7.25m or less required in order to have funding to Dec 31st.

Would imagine they'll be looking for much greater funding to get them right through to cash positive in early 2025 though.

This is the relevant part of the interims and why the share price has fallen so:

'Going concern

In assessing whether the Group has the ability to continue as a going concern the Directors have modelled a base cash flow forecast for a period up to 31 December 2024. The Directors have prepared a base case scenario that assumes the 14.5m Short-Term warrants originally granted in 2021 ("Short-Term Warrants"), are exercised. Under this scenario the Group would expect to remain cash positive for the period up to 31 December 2024 assessed for going concern purposes. The forecast does indicate that the Group would move into negative cash shortly after the period assessed for going concern as a result of working capital investment on future sales. The Group would defer any working capital investment if it were to result in exhausting all cash. This forecast is also based on delivering existing signed sales contracts during 2023 as per forecast gross margins and existing and future sales contracts during 2024 at anticipated positive gross margins. The Directors recognise there is a risk that the Short-Term Warrants will not be exercised if they are not 'in the money' before the expiry date and given it is not at the discretion of the Group.

In assessing going concern the Directors have also prepared a severe but plausible downside scenario which forecasts delivery of existing and future sales being made during 2024 being delayed beyond June 2024 and forecasted margins not being achieved, and the Short-Term warrants not being exercised. Under this scenario the Group would exhaust all available cash by April 2024 and it will be necessary to raise further funding within the next 12 months in order to continue trading and deliver on the strategic objectives.'

The deadline for the short term warrants has now passed so some sort of funding, all things being equal, will be coming in the next couple of months. What with IES being close to cash flow positive debt financing must be one option at this stage...

The next trading session or two appear pivotal now. If BTC can inch further north and Argo catches a sentiment shift we're looking at 20p+ , fail to ignite and i'm sure we'll see it test 10p.

No half measures with Argo!

Possibly a small one with a strategic partner, not back on the open market at this low of a price.

Previous placings have been at 175p, 100p and 32p. To be forced into one even lower with their flagship, cash generating Mistral product so close to market (H2 2024?) would be mighty frustrating.

They likely had debt maturing in early 2024 so what choice did they have? It would have been raise or be dragged into administration.

Of course management would love to let it run when it catches a tailwind like it did in early Jan.

Taking the last four quarterlies into account rather than just this time last year would suggest Shield like to update about six to seven weeks after the end of the period, so if they continue to follow that regime I'd expect the update to land around the 15th Feb.

Either way it should be with us within a fortnight.

All it took was a move to ~$44.5k on Jan 2nd to see Argo hit its twelve month high of 36p. Why? Because momentum had gathered due to improving operational updates, a steady rise in BTC and etf hype.

Now the hype's died down, we've had one poorer update and BTC has fallen back a tad and we find $43k = 13.5p.

Momentum's absolutely everything with this share... still think there's likely one big push to be had before the halving though and it'll probably start from around this level or a few pence lower.

I'll defer your specific question to someone more clued up but in terms of current price we know that average sales price was €800 for December and we at least know there's a positive correlation between local prices and international prices, even if currently local prices are slightly below int.

International prices were around 6% higher in January than they were in December and have remained around 6% higher so even if local prices aren't as high as int. prices it's reasonable to assume current selling price is at least €800 still and possible more like €850 now, both of which are healthy.

And forecasters are predicting higher prices in H2 than H1 due to the El Nino effect, so on that front we shouldn't be concerned.

If I was to give TW any credit it's that he's skilled at what he does. He identifies AIM businesses with particularly negative sentiment and he goes after them, using his not inconsiderate following, in an attempt to cause a pile on.

I think he's chosen badly when it comes to NCYT though. Almost everyone still holding is sticking it out until the dispute is resolved, as can be seen by the tiny volumes we're getting most days so I suspect we're still at/near the bottom despite TWs articles and the mildly negative news we've received recently.