Firering Strategic Minerals: From explorer to producer. Watch the video here.
Listened to the Vox interview with interest. Reluctantly I believe the company does need a little capital buffer, brought on by its own inability to manage the contractor effectively.
However a few points. I would like to hear DB say that all other obvious sources of funds - an overdraft, a short term loan or revolving credit - have been explored. After all, if the funds MAY not be needed (as he admits) then those sources - drawn down if and when necessary - are better.
I also disagree with how much is being raised. Using some capital to accelerate drilling at Kor is completely unnecessary given the level of dilution. Each $1m of exploration costs 10m shares. Further, there shouldn’t be a retail offer nor should it be opened up to existing institutional investors - this is not a time for perceived “fairness”, given the dilutive impact.
“Rescue plan”. Emotive language, Bimini. AVO doesn’t need a “rescue plan”, it needs to raise capital for the next stage of its development.
Wraith, yes, agree. I suspect they’ve made the decision to sell on behalf of all their discretionary clients, in which case we can expect the remaining 20m to be sold too. At current rate of progress that would take 6-7 weeks. Seems like the sp won’t be doing much until April, at which point - with a good Q1 report - it will take off (hopefully!).
So it looks like Ruffer had 39m+ shares at the start of this year and have sold about 19m since then - about half a million per working day on average. Not surprising that the sp hasn’t gone anywhere.
The maths on this look odd - previously Ruffer had almost 10% (40m shares); now less than 5% of c440m (22m). Have they been selling down for a while and have only had to declare their holding now when breaching the 5% threshold?
Again, buy/sell stats are dodgy but 1.5m buys today, hardly any sells; similar yesterday, a bit less. Plenty interested at these levels.
If the three largest institutional shareholders which together hold c20% of the shares were to come out and say “this offer materially undervalues the company’s prospects and we will not support it” then that would put the Board in a difficult place - if they were indeed planning to let Sagi get away with this in order to keep themselves on the gravy train. They have a duty to ALL shareholders. They would have to explain why their version of the future differs from the institutions’ views. They also have to explain what’s happening with the 265p monies - let’s recall we all expected these to fund meaningful, earnings-accretive acquisitions that would further enhance prospects. I expect the Board has already taken soundings and we can expect a response imminently.
What if we reach an impasse? Board says min 350p say, then what? Sagi tries to buy shares in the open market and persuade institutions to sell - but would they? If he can’t get to 75% to trigger a delist (if that’s the threshold), what can he still do as majority shareholder?
27c per share, I think, Bushy. And of course some of that will be owed to the respective Governments and the taxman. Still - pretty good!
I would hope the company started to manage down its costs quite a few months ago, well before it announced it’d try to cut its cost base by 30%. Given that 230MeV has been achieved I imagine they don’t need to spend so much on the actual components either. So there may be enough cash for a further month or two....
I don’t trust the supposed number of buys /sells each day but even if they’re accurate we’ve seen less than 700k shares sold today, i.e. c£50k again - and for the second day that’s a penny off the share price. It’s fair to say the sp is now totally divorced from the company’s prospects. I’ve seen this before - AFC Energy went down to 3p in the darkest days but now sits comfortably in the 20s. I think AVO is probably following a similar trajectory. Even with the worst dilution you can think of, this company is worth many multiples of today’s mcap.
This is just silly now. Half a million shares traded, just £50k worth, and the MMs mark the sp down by 10%. There’ll be fortunes made here if AVO manage to raise the capital on reasonable terms....
Just don’t agree that “any strong recovery of the sp is a long way down the road”. The value here remains very high. Koroussa coming on line is no further away than it was a week ago. Indeed the funds raised include an element to accelerate drilling there and thereby increase its value sooner than otherwise. The capital raising should have drawn a line under the sp - and may support it’s growth more than if the capital hadn’t been raised due to greater market confidence. Re-reading the RNS, it’s clear CIG is seen as a partner that can help raise funds for further expansion - whether that’s a fourth mine elsewhere (note the comment that HUM is not restricted to West Africa) or for getting Dugbe into production.
Very disappointed with this news today but I guess Coris had turned the taps off, or simply the level of debt was deemed excessive. And on re-reading yesterday’s RNS, there are a few references to payment deferrals into H2 etc. It’s a very expensive way of raising $15m - I can only assume it’s absolutely necessary and debt wasn’t possible. If the market is now convinced that Koroussa is fully funded then we may well see a steady upward trend from here.
The RNS suggests that Q1 is following Q4’s production profile, so at an extra $100 per oz that should be c$13m EBITDA. January already in the bag and presumably going well to date. What will it take for the SP to rerate? I guess confidence, once lost, takes time to repair, so perhaps the company will have to produce a decent Q1 first. As a first step I’m looking for a return to the 12-13p level we saw last Q3 before things started going south.
Also it would be very odd if Oct were poor as the company issued its production update on 22/10, three weeks into the month. And in that RNS the yearly forecast, implying a Q4 of 26-36k ozs, was said to be “conservative”.
Sad to see this board taken over by Johnny-come-latelys who only want to trash the company. This 30% SP fall is completely overdone. Even if the four UTC contracts have been lost they should not have a significant effect on the overall business (given there were 23 such centres at the interims last November). Pioneer Healthcare will now be cooking on gas and H2 is always busier than H1. H1 profits were affected by some costs associated with acquisitions, so they should not be used to make projections about the future. Yes there are continuing challenges around staffing and inflation, though we’ve been told many contracts have inflationary adjustments built into the charging structure. Confidently expecting this to bounce back once we have clarity on the four UTCs.
I think what’s mostly keeping the share price low is a fear the company may run out of cash. Even if Q4 is behind the guided level, it may well be that fears of going broke can be put to bed. A small cash profit, or news that Coris finally agreed the terms of its working capital loan, or news that Yan has been running at full production for two months now - any of these I would see as a strong positive.
Of course we should recall that the £75-85m AVO needs to raise is spread over two years. I’m more than hopeful that in one year’s time, after regulatory certification and first patient treatment, the SP will be much higher than today - so equity financing will be much less dilutive. The existence of 200m 25p warrants will also facilitate raising the amount required. I can see a situation where £40m is raised next year at a minimum of 25p - so max 160m shares on top of the current 500m or so. The ideal scenario, then, is for this year’s £40m requirement (if that’s what it is) to be in the form of loans if at all possible. However it’s phased, I would happily take that overall level of dilution to be in the expected position in two year’s time. I’m confident about the future but am already heavily invested here so am waiting for news of fund raising before investing more.
As well as a good Q4, what I’d really like to see is the BoD commit to selling Dugbe to reinvest in another Koroussa. There must be plenty of distressed early-stage explorers/producers, ideally in a country not yet covered, who are looking to sell. KOR is a good size for HUM; Dugbe is not. £50m+ from Dugbe would comfortably cover the equity component of a third mine and lead to 300k ozs pa in a couple of years’ time.