Whilst we have seen a very handsome return over the one year timeframe here is £51m mcap really that much for a virtually debt free miner heading to 60k, organically funded within two years and with long term plans of 100k-200k ounces?
This is excellent to see.
Let’s not forget that Novacyt’s current valuation is roughly equivalent to just the two largest acquisitions - Primer design and Yourgene. Everything else (including £44m cash) comes for free, assuming a neutral outcome from the dispute.
Only a big loss in the dispute will make Novacyt look fairly valued come June
However strong our case may be the outcome is never 100% guaranteed so I can see why Novacyt’s management might accept a settlement that puts this whole saga to bed and with further cash heading our way.
Ideally the sooner this is behind us the better.
And to get to profitability they are needing one more lot of financing, something that is currently being worked.
The management have talked confidently and openly about this which is in stark contrast to the usual hush hush prior to a placing but still, in this climate, it's unlikely many will jump in until that financing is over the line.
It's reasonable to assume that the DHSC never expected Novacyt to stand their ground all the way to the High Court. What with being such a small company I suspect the dhsc thought Novacyt would run into financial trouble over the three year period from when the dispute was first announced leading to an eventual settlement on terms more favourable to the DHSC.
Only now when there's no doubt that Novacyt are going all the way might we see a settlement agreed that is weighted well in our favour.
The V price is less important to a VRFB manufacturer as it is to a vanadium producer - take IES for example, vanadium accounts for 17% of the total cost of a vrfb according to their most recent data, although I believe as other costs come down and they scale that percentage will rise slightly.
The next set of results are really very important now. TGR should be able to reach 1500Tpm without additional funding, the £m they are looking for isn’t specifically for ramp up, it’s more for working capital (cash put aside to pay CLN coupon, to be able to attract a reputable CFO etc) so these next results need to show either (i) they are now at 1500tpm or (ii) they have at least ramped up to break even level (~1100tpm).
If they show no improvement on H1 production whatsoever then it’s hard to imagine future funding will be anything other than painful.
It's a bit of a myth to say Fortune focused on everything but the core activities, this is only said because of how much he failed. At the time of the big $65m finance package in late 2020 BMN were producing 3650mtV a year and the vast majority of those proceeds were directed at Vametco and Vanchem for upgrades, repairs and expansion - targeting a production level of 6800mtV.
40 months on and production has yet to reach 4000mtV in any year.
We can't say who pushed for it, I guess it's ended up at court due to a mutual unwillingness to compromise. All we know is there were active discussions in Jan 2021 to extend the supply contract. The DHSC decided not to and so following this the dispute began. Novacyt sought legal action right from the start.
A year later in April 2022 the DHSC issued a large claim against Novacyt. Six weeks passed and Novacyt filed a defence of the claim and issued a counterclaim. And then about six months after that the trial data of 10th June 2024 was announced.
We know little more than the continually repeated claim that they (Novacyt) believe they have 'strong grounds to assert their contractual rights' meaning both defending against the claim issued against them as well as collecting the sums they believe they are owed by the DHSC + interest.
1.2p to buy, that's more than a 30% increase just to get to Lincoln's 1.1m purchase price a week or so ago.
You'd think the two large director buys last week were a hint to improving cashew performance soon to be announced, right? Whilst early enough not to get accused of insider trading... I doubt Lincoln would buy 1.6m worth only to then see it become a big fat loss following the upcoming results.
Segun stated base case of 3 more years, after this year, of around about 100k ounces, generating ~$300m free cash flow so this year's production figure is expected to be repeated until the (current) end of the life of this mine.
That by itself is a phenomenal amount of cash generation before we even talk a year or two more at Segilola, Douta, or the lithium potential.
They don't need another broker just to do a basic small placing like they did in Jan, that happened with Optiva alone. Shishir is also pretty nimble when it comes to equity raises, never has it ever been signposted, they always come out of the blue. There's just no way that the time they are in the most danger of sky high dilution (£1m would be 15% dilution around this level) they would signal to the market their intention. No way.
What the purpose of this broker is I can't say though. They have been accused (fairly) of poor corporate governance with only those falling in line with Shishir still standing and even Optiva, their broker, having close connections to Shishir seeing as their ceo founded Tirupati with the Poddars. So perhaps this is the start of getting their house in order and targeting institutional investment?
There is no two ways about it STX absolutely has to see a significant operational turnaround before their next cash raise or shareholders are going to be diluted to oblivion - that's the short term risk now and explains the current SP.
There's a reasonable gamble to be had at 2p heading into April and the next quarterly results but it's certainly high risk, most would rather stay on the sidelines and buy back in on confirmation of better results.
I do agree with PI100 (let that sink in!) , Graham Mullis returning is a ridiculous suggestion and Lyn appears a reasonable fit, despite his flaws.
No rush though, happy to see James in post until after the DHSC dispute is resolved.
Shishir makes no bones about raising, they can’t pretend to aim to reach 400000tpa organically self funded! They will however look to show significant operational improvement and hence rerate before going back down the dilutive funding route.
If they can get the share price back into the teens I’d expect a raise but not something to be too concerned about at 6p imo.
Anyway, one more step towards professionalisation.
Repeating a previous post now gold has broken through $2100/oz:
SRBs five year high of 119p came in late 2020 so worth looking at AISC margin for 2020 and 2021.
2020 - $353 , 31200 ounces production
2021 - $347, 33850 ounces production
Now assuming $2100 ave gold price for this year and $1475 AISC we get:
2024 - $625, 39000 ounces
That's a huge step up from the figures posted in 2020/2021 when SRB share price was at its highs and would generate more than double the EBITDA.
And fast forward eighteen months and the target is more than 60000 ounces at sub $1400 aisc, possibly a doubling again in ebitda.
*At $2400/oz ave in eighteen months, something that's not unrealistic now, we could be looking at more ebitda than today's mcap and a debt-free self funded path to 100k oz pa - potential upside here is significant.
Well Largo's results were better than I expected:
They went from $39.5m cash, $65m debt at the end of Sept to $42.7m cash and $75m debt end of year. Jan and Feb have produced just 858t v205 total, equivalent to 463mtV which is very low, even factoring in maintenance.
V price is now lower than it averaged in Q4 so that loss will increase this quarter but they survive twelve months if they want just drawing on a bit more debt and holding back on capex spending at Marachas.
Not sure $105m mcap is justified for a $10m+ a quarter loss making vanadium company with life of mine issues and ever falling production numbers but it looks like they won't be halting production anytime soon.